


Come a Little Bit Closer

by ckret2



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: 1970s, Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Bad Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Captivity, Chair Bondage, Dancing, Demiromantic Asexual Alastor, Denial of Feelings, Disposable OCs - Freeform, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fate Worse Than Death, Gaslighting, Heavy Angst, Horror, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Magic, Manipulation, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Possessive Behavior, Post-Break Up, Pre-Canon, Psychological Horror, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Torture, Touch-Starved Alastor, Toxic Relationships, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Yandere, half of these tags are only for the last chapter or two, with appearances from Husk and Mimzy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25192633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: Alastor wants a dance partner who can help him forget the lover he lost a decade ago.Elsewhere in the city, a couple of reptilian sinners just want to get laid.Of the three of them, only one is going to leave with what he wanted. But it's doubtful any of them will leave happy.
Relationships: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel)/Original Character(s), Alastor/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 87





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic is a sequel to my other fic, [Cold Day In Hell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776062/chapters/51958888), but if you haven't read it and don't want to, literally the only thing you need to know is "Alastor and Sir Pentious are exes but Alastor is still in love."
> 
> I haven't played enough with Alastor's potential for absolute villainy. And I like the idea of playing the worst, cruelest demonstrations of evil in direct juxtaposition to softer sympathetic emotions, like heartbreak.

Car dealerships made for wonderful dance floors. They had flat, smooth, shiny tile floors—designed both for the comfort of customers coming in and out of the dealership and for the ease of cars being driven in and out of the show room. Highly polished, always cleaned—well, as clean as the floors ever were in Hell—and they made a satisfying click under his shoes. They were certainly large enough for a dance floor once he'd shoved aside or teleported out the cars currently occupying them. Some of the more upscale dealerships even had speakers that played prerecorded advertisements and music—convenient for Alastor to take over and pipe music through when he didn't want to provide his own musical accompaniment.

Yes, a nice car dealership came with everything that Alastor needed for a lovely night dancing... except for the dance partners.

Alastor had always enjoyed dancing. What he _didn't_ enjoy was dance partners.

He couldn't stand the physical contact—couldn't stand the touch of another person, couldn't stand fingers on his hands and shoulders and waist, couldn't stand the pressure of flesh that contained a thinking feeling person, couldn't stand to have his body so intimately physically manipulated by something with its own ideas and opinions and goals. He hated to be touched.

He craved to be touched. He hadn't been touched in ten years.

He didn't enjoy dance partners, and he didn't enjoy dancing by himself. But he was a clever man, used to working around restrictions other people found insurmountable.

He danced with his shadows.

Tonight's impromptu dance hall was full of that tacky chrome and neon lighting so many places were into these days, but it had an array of lovely vintage cars—some of the very earliest models produced in Hell, if Alastor wasn't mistaken—which made up for the gaudy display of aggressively 1970s modernity. The dealership also came with the unfortunate problem of _windows_ , those wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling slabs of glass that showed off the the cars on the showroom floor behind a protective lattice of burglar bars. Alastor had more than enough shadows at his command to shred and stitch them into a thin curtain to plaster against the inside surfaces of the windows, leaving nothing but inky blackness for anyone who tried to peer inside, and still keep a small handful of intact shadows left over. Enough to set a small band together for live music and still keep one to dance with. And so, with his personal band playing "Begin the Beguine," he twirled around the room with his incorporeal partner.

Shadows made for difficult dance partners. Yes, dancing with shadows that he himself commanded got around most of the issues of dancing with a _person_. But they were cold, light, and if he gripped them too tightly, they crushed and tore as easily as a piece of tissue paper. He _could_ step back and send his own shadow in to dance in his place, so that they'd be on equal footing, but...

Well, that was the problem, wasn't it. The footing. The footing felt wrong.

Sure, Alastor's current partner got all the dance steps right—as if any of _his_ shadows _wouldn't_ know how to dance!—but it felt wrong. It was missing a certain... a certain grace.

He did his best to try to ignore it. He shut his eyes, keeping track of his dance partner by feel alone—and oh, it was _hard_ to feel a shadow—but still. But still...

He felt the shadow tearing under his claws. He forced his grip to loosen.

Of course it wasn't the real thing. He _knew_ it wasn't the real thing. He wasn't trying to trick himself into thinking it was the real thing. He just—couldn't it at least be good enough that he could _pretend_ it was the real thing—?

It was no good.

Voice garbled with static, Alastor hissed, "You're useless." He shoved the shadow away from him—its hands dissolved like smoke as they were jerked away from Alastor's hand and waist—raised a foot, and kicked it into a window. It shredded and contorted over the burglar bars, and the fragments that made it between the bars slammed into the window hard enough to crack it.

The band stopped playing.

Alastor huffed in annoyance, and then summoned his cane and stalked across the showroom floor, rubbing his face with his free hand to make sure his smile hadn't wavered. He'd only deigned to allow one of the dealership's cars to remain on his dance floor, albeit moved to the side of the showroom—one of the oldest cars in the dealership, glittering black and luxurious gold trim and headlights that looked like star rubies that looked like eyes. He pulled open the passenger seat door—oh, driver seat door, this one had its wheel on the right side—and flopped down across the front bench. It still had its original upholstery, too. Leather textured like snake skin, dyed a magenta that matched the headlights. He shut his eyes again, his right arm stretched up to rest his forearm across the top of the bench, thumb running over the leather. He could faintly feel the texture through his glove.

"So," his microphone said, muffled where it was pressed against his chest. "What's the problem?"

Alastor was just talking to himself; but he needed that prompting for permission to do so. "Even if I'm not looking!" he said, gesturing emphatically with the cane, pressing harder into the snakeskin with his thumb. "Even if I'm not looking, I can _tell_ the shadow's moving the wrong way! I can _feel_ it! Even when I've just got a hand on its shoulder, I can feel the way its hips are moving. I can _tell_ it's tottering around on—on a couple of long sticks with two hinges in the middle instead of a single, spinelike, flexible..."

Tail. He cut himself off with a sigh of dead air before he could finish. He curled his right hand into a fist, trapping his thumb in his fingers.

After a pause, the microphone casually suggested, "You know... you _could_ go apologize."

He was just talking to himself; but he needed to hear it out loud, from someone else's voice, to remind himself of what a stupid idea that was. Alastor sneered at the roof of the car. "And I could go to confessional, too; but I hardly see the point when I'm already damned." He slid to the end of the bench, climbed back out of the car, and got to his feet. "Anyway, what would I do with forgiveness if I had it? I'm perfectly fine by myself! I _prefer_ being by myself! Why, look where I am!" He twirled in a circle so that he could take in the entire view with a single gesture—his private ballroom, his army of shadows, his personal band, the glitz and glamor, the chrome and neon. "Fully self-sufficient, I am! The American dream manifest! Entirely independent—and _quite_ pleased with my independence, I might add. Here I am, spending my night dancing!"

Just like he'd done nearly every night when he was alive. Every night, between evening sign-off and morning sign-on, he'd been out on the town, listening to the music, dancing until he was too exhausted to move. It was different when he was all by himself. Less crowded. The heartbroken didn't dance, did they? Of course not.

"You're not dancing _now_ , buddy."

When had Alastor given himself permission to talk to him like that? "I'm not a fan of the atmosphere at this club. I'm leaving." His shadows peeled off the windows and grasped at the bars, pulled themselves through, reformed themselves, and drifted after Alastor. "And I think I'll set it on fire."

The burglar bars snapped apart and peeled open for him. As he stepped outside through the shattered window, the front bench of the lovely vintage car in the showroom burst into flames.

As the flames engulfed the whole building and climbed high into the night, Alastor's own shadow stretched ahead of him, long and twisting.

He was going to find a speakeasy, ask for the strongest drink they had, and tell the bartender to keep them coming until he passed out dead in the corner.

###

As he searched for a bar that had decided to make itself a little harder to find than the crass gaudy places playing disco and rock, he passed a late night newspaper stand—open, no doubt, less to sell papers and more to sell tobacco, marijuana, and needles for vices a little stronger than those. The bored-looking blue-skinned man sitting on a stool behind the cash register was alternating drags between a cigarette and a joint and reading a paperback.

There was a radio behind the cashier that hadn't noticed Alastor's presence yet and was still playing its original music: some sad, slow song that had been playing nonstop lately, something about rain falling like pearls. He slowed briefly to listen to the instruments—beneath the guitar and the drums he thought he caught the sound of an electric organ, but he wasn't sure—when a set of eyes behind the counter caught his gaze. He turned to stare into them.

One of the newspapers stacked behind the counter had a black-and-white picture of a man with slitted eyes glowering out from beneath the brim of a black top hat.

After several seconds, Alastor broke eye contact with the picture. The paper was the _Southeast Midnight News_ , a less important local rag. Ohhh, no. No, he shouldn't. He dragged his gaze away from the paper—and immediately looked back. No. Absolutely not. He was acting like a—a child. A fool.

The longer he looked, the more he could feel barbed wire twisting around his heart.

Pushing his smile a smidgen wider, he leaned over the counter. "Hello, my friend!"

The cashier started at the loud voice, dropping his book and his cigarette. "Wh—"

"You wouldn't mind passing me tonight's copy of the _Southeast Midnight_ , would you?" Alastor forced himself to focus on the cashier's face rather than meet the paper's gaze again.

Without glancing at his customer, the cashier kicked off a sandal and stretched out a clawed foot to grab his book and pick it back up. "For forty cents, I don't mind. Otherwise, fuck off." He thumbed through his book, looking for his lost page.

Alastor tilted his head. With a garbled hiss, the radio behind the cashier changed frequencies, landing somewhere between two stations where snatches of two different voices could be faintly heard babbling over each other. The cashier turned to give the radio a puzzled look.

"Are you _sure?_ " Alastor's voice simultaneously came out of his mouth and out of the radio.

The cashier dropped his book again. "Y-yeah! Sure thing, pal! N-no problem!" He hopped off his stool so fast it fell over. "Which, uhhh..."

"The _Southeast Midnight News_ —"

"Right, right!"

"—if you'd be so kind."

"Sure!" The cashier held out the paper, smiling fearfully.

"Ah—now _that's_ proper customer service! You look _much_ friendlier than you did a moment ago." Alastor tucked his cane into the crook of one arm so he could take the paper with one hand and pinch the cashier's cheek with the other. "Very generous of you—but I wouldn't make a habit of handing out your papers for free! That's no way to run a profitable business." As he continued down the sidewalk away from the cashier, he called back, "Have a lovely evening," and began cheerily humming the song that had been playing on the radio, with his hands, cane, and newspaper all clasped together behind his back.

He didn't look at the paper until he'd turned a corner and reached the beam of a flickering streetlight. He looked at the picture, read the headline, read the first line, re-read the first line, re-re-read the first line, gave up, looked at the picture, re-read the headline, and looked at the picture. He couldn't hold the words in his head. The first sentence said something about a taxi driver and an attempted bank robbery; he'd already lost the rest.

The slitted eyes stared up at him. It wasn't even a good picture; it was printed too darkly, so that aside from the eyes it was all just a black silhouette. It only made the barbed wire crisscrossing Alastor's rib cage tighten.

He crumpled up the paper in his hands, crushed it against his squeezed shut eyes, and held back a snarl of frustration. He tossed the paper atop an overflowing trash can and stalked down the street.

He wanted to go dancing.

"Back where we started, eh?" his cane asked.

"It's an endless cycle," Alastor lamented into the still night air. "There's no winning! I already know none of my currently available dance partners are going to be satisfactory, wrong shape as they all are—"

Alastor had stared so long into the eyes of the newspaper photograph that a negative afterimage of it hung before him now, a white silhouette of a serpentine figure with a top hat projected against the black sky.

He slowed to a stop, tapping the top of his cane with one claw. Thoughtfully, he said, "Maybe that's a solvable problem."

###

"This place sucks," Poppy said. Her limbless torso was flopped down on the table, face in the narrow gap between her and Ernest's drinks. "We shoulda gone to scaly night at the furry bar." Her tail coiled around the legs of her chair in boredom.

"The furry bar's full of furries."

"Yeah, but _scaly night_." Poppy unwound the end of her tail from her chair legs and lifted it to point at the sunny yellow scales on Ernest's naked chest. " _Our_ night."

"Scaly night sucks." Ernest finished his drink, looked for somewhere free to set it, and gently balanced it on top of Poppy's head. "Nobody gay ever goes."

"Plenty of gays go! I've picked up as many chicks as guys."

"That's because you barely have tits, the girls can't tell the difference."

Poppy extended one arm to sock Ernest before retracting it back into her shoulder. The action caused the glass balanced on her head to topple off, knocking over four empty glasses and causing one to roll off the table and crash to the floor. Several people at nearby tables turned to look.

Poppy sat up quickly, shrinking back toward the corner of the bar behind their table, as if her blotchy red-and-black spots could help her camouflage with the club's wallpaper despite the glaucous scales between them; Ernest quickly smoothed down his orange neck frill, which had flared up in alarm when the glasses fell over.

They both stared at the table as if their empty glasses were the most fascinating thing they'd ever seen until the nearby clubgoers stopped looking at them, and then quietly resumed their conversation. Poppy muttered, her voice so low that Ernest almost couldn't hear her over the disco pumping through the speakers, "The girls can sure tell the difference when they've got their tongues up my—"

"Okay, shut up. I don't wanna hear about it," Ernest grumbled. "Then no gay _guys_ go to scaly night. Maybe _you're_ lucky, but _I've_ never picked anyone up at the furry bar."

Poppy rolled her eyes and extended both arms again to pull her hair out of its ponytail. Something had gotten it wet, probably when the glasses fell over. "And how many guys have you picked up _here?_ "

Ernest pouted. "Well," he said, "there was that—"

"Do _not_ tell me about the vampire-looking guy again, that was _over two years ago_ ," Poppy said.

Ernest pouted harder.

"And I'm tired of hearing about your weird shared Oscar Wilde kink."

"It's not a kink! Dorian and I both like his writing, that's—" Ernest yelped and his frill flared again as Poppy reached under his butt to pull his hanky out of his back jeans pocket. "Hey!" He smoothed his frill down with one hand and reached for his hanky with the other. "Give that back!"

"You don't need it tonight." Poppy began squeezing booze out of her hair. "We know every single person who's here tonight and _every one_ of them is turned off by reptiles."

Ernest almost protested, then slouched back in his seat. "Yeah." His thin tail curled restlessly around his ankle. "Just wash my hanky before next Fri—"

They both fell silent and whipped around to face the entrance as the bell over the door rang. Another regular came in, that buff guy with the nose ring. They both groaned. This was the guy who refused to even make eye contact with either of them. They'd concluded he probably had some kind of lizard phobia.

"Next month. Scaly night," Poppy said. "At least _one_ of us has a chance of scoring there."

"Thanks a lot."

"I'll find a guy who swings both ways. We can share him. I don't care," Poppy said. "Half a dick each is more action than either of us has got in three months."

Ernest let out a long, long sigh. But then he said, "Sure. Deal."

Their standards were lower than usual. When one is dying of thirst, and someone comes tromping across the desert and says, "I've got a canteen for y'all, but you're gonna have to split it, only half is left, and I spit in it," _first_ one should drink it and _then_ one should complain about the quality.

They sure weren't being offered any metaphorical canteens here tonight. All they saw were regulars who shuddered at the sight of scales.  


Just as Poppy finished re-braiding her hair, the bell rang again. They both turned toward it, and both sighed again.

It was the cat guy, the black-and-white one with the red wings. He'd been showing up the last month or so. He did magic tricks when he was drunk, which was cute; and he was completely naked except for his hat and the hanky tied around his left forearm, which was even _more_ cute; but then he got even drunker as fast as possible and complained about everything until either he was cut off or fell asleep, which was less cute.

And, more importantly, he'd already turned both of them down.

They were about to turn back to their empty glasses and their plotting for next month when, a moment before the door swung shut, it was pulled open again. Poppy elbowed Ernest sharply.

"Ow!"

"New guy!"

"What? _Oh._ "

They both watched hungrily as a new face wandered in. In a matter of seconds, they each ran the same set of rapid mental calculations and drew the same set of conclusions: he was tall—not, like, tall-tall by Hell's mutated standards, and shorter than Ernest—but still taller than average; he _wasn't_ intolerably hideous, further judgment to be done later to decide where on the scale from "mediocre" to "Adonis-like" he fell; and based on his clothes he'd probably died anywhere from the '20s to the late '30s, which made it kinda weird they hadn't seen him before now, but oh well, maybe he'd just moved to the Pentagram, maybe he'd spent the last fifty years denying his deep desire for cock, who knew, they'd find out his story later. Please let him be here as cat guy's friend and not as his date. Please let him be into scales.

Poppy belatedly remembered that, given which bar they were at tonight, the odds that the new arrival was into scales was only slightly higher than the odds that he was into vag. She sat back to let Ernest have first stab at the new guy.

Meanwhile, Ernest was having an entirely different realization. His eyes bugged out and his hands flew up to clasp around his neck before his frill could flare again. " _What the fuck_ ," he hissed.

Poppy looked at him. "What?" Did Ernest know the new arrival?

Ernest leaned over, pressing his shoulder against Poppy's and hissing directly in her ear, "Cat guy brought the _motherfucking Radio Demon!_ "

Poppy's voice dropped too. " _What?_ " She stared at the new arrival.

"He's got the—the stripy jacket and the smile! And the glowy eyes, I heard he has glowy eyes."

"What the fuck—no, he would have horns, it's on all the posters."

Ernest squinted, leaning forward. "He _does_ have horns. Between his ears?"

Poppy squinted too. "I thought they'd be bigger."

"Who the _fuck_ brings the Radio Demon to a gay bar?" Ernest whispered.

" _What the fuck_ , magic trick cat guy?" Poppy hissed. "What do you have against literally everyone here?"

"He was complaining about the overpriced drinks a couple of weeks ago."

"I—well, shit, me too, but that's not worth getting the whole club ripped limb from limb."

"Maybe he's just gonna use him to get free drinks."

Ernest and Poppy weren't the only table who'd dropped to a whisper when the Radio Demon stepped in. By that time, everyone in the bar had either identified the new arrival or else fallen silent as they noticed the other guests' sudden spike in anxiety, so that the only sounds clearly audible in the bar were the disco music still cheerily pumping through the speakers and the cat guy grumbling, "Can't fuckin' take you anywhere."

The Radio Demon said not a word. He just grinned, his glowing gaze skimming the room like a searchlight. And then he followed the cat guy to the bar—several stools had mysteriously opened up—and ordered a drink like some kind of normal person who didn't broadcast mass mutilations over the radio. Looking at his back and at this distance, they couldn't hear his words, but they _could_ tell that his voice had a strange distorted quality to it, like the sound of a radio playing an AM station across a crowded room. He turned back to briefly survey the room again as he waited for his drink.

Ernest and Poppy flinched when his gaze passed over them. It felt like it lingered far too long for comfort.

And then, once the Radio Demon had his drink, he fully turned around to sit on his stool backwards, one foot hooked by the heel on the footrest ring and the other on the floor, elbows on the bar, that eerily unthreatening smile on his face, scanning the crowd with half-lidded eyes. Just like anyone else in a bar might do.

Ernest leaned close to Poppy again. "Is. Is he _cruising?_ Is he trying to get laid? Is the _Radio Demon_ looking to _score?_ "

"That can't be right," Poppy said. "The Radio Demon is too scary to be capable of having sex. He should've had his dick confiscated when he died in exchange for getting to be that scary."

Ernest nodded in emphatic agreement.

Although he looked slightly less intimidating sitting next to a grumpy cat who'd pulled out a deck of cards and started doing card tricks for the bartender. (The bartender, it seemed, was the only one who wasn't too terrified to get within five feet of them. Quite possibly because the bartender was being paid to get within five feet of them.) The intimidation factor shot right back up when the Radio Demon raised a finger in the air and twirled it around, causing the lighting in a ten foot radius of him to mysteriously dim as red lights floated like dust motes around his hand; but then the cards that the cat was trying to spring from one hand to the other flipped all over the bar top and the floor and the lights went back to normal. The Radio Demon laughed as the cat angrily collected his cards.

"Okay," Poppy whispered, "obviously, fluffy cat is here to try to make the Radio Demon look less scary."

"Yeah. Obviously," Ernest muttered. "Because Radio Demon sure isn't doing fluffy cat's approachability any favors."  


Poppy's forked tongue flicked out as she wheezed a laugh. "I don't think the cat's helping out the Radio Demon much, either," she said. "But the fact that they're making the effort is comforting."

Ernest gave her an uncertain look. "Is it?"

"It means he actually _is_ cruising," Poppy said. "Right? If he was trying to _mutilate everyone in the room_ , he could just—you know— _do_ it."

Ernest's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Good point."

"I mean, it's not necessarily _cruising_. I don't know, maybe he has other hobbies that involve not scaring people. But it's _not_ a bloodbath. That's what matters."

Ernest tried to think of the Radio Demon's hobbies, but he tended to skim over the "Today I Saw The Radio Demon..." letters in the newspaper. "I think I've heard 'barge onto stages during other people's shows and start singing' is one of his hobbies," Ernest said, "but he probably doesn't go out of his way to put people at ease before doing that, either."

"So probably cruising."

"Probably." For the first time since he'd identified the Radio Demon, Ernest let his hands slide off of his neck frill.

They silently watched the cat grouse at the Radio Demon while the Radio Demon blithely endured it—and then his gaze flicked in their direction.

They both flinched and looked away.

After a moment—once the Radio Demon had turned his attention back to the cat guy—Ernest said, "Is it just me, or...?"

"He's only glanced at us a few times," Poppy said nervously. "We're probably just being paranoid."

"Maybe we're whispering too loud," Ernest whispered loudly. "He's the _Radio_ Demon, he can probably hear us whispering about him. Shit. Should we stop whispering about him?"

"But everyone probably whispers about him everywhere he goes," Poppy said.

"Maybe most other people aren't dumb enough to whisper in front of him," Ernest said. "Maybe we're the only dumb ones."

"Should we shut up?"

They shut up.

Several long minutes passed in silence. A couple of times, his gaze swept over them—and passed on. They flinched each time. Ernest went back to pressing his hands down on his shoulders.

Poppy noticed the guests at the next table over flinching too. "We're probably imagining that he's looking at us more than anyone else," she muttered. Because the thought that they _weren't_ imagining it was terrifying. Because even if he was looking at them—and even if he was looking at them for the reason they _thought_ he might be looking at them, considering the context and the location...

When one is dying of thirst, and someone comes tromping across the desert and says, "I've got a canteen, but it's full of cyanide," _no matter how thirsty you are..._ you don't want that shit.  


On the other hand.

On the other hand, how bad was cyanide, _really_. It tasted like almonds, right? Like a sweet amaretto.

Ernest said, "The Radio Demon's kinda... y'know. Kinda hot."

Poppy gave the Radio Demon a considering look, shrugged, and nodded.

This was Hell. None of their dating prospects had great personalities. How bad was a guy who introduced himself to Hell with a little carnage, really? It demonstrated ambition _and_ showmanship.

They weren't the only ones to slowly revise their opinion on the newest arrival, now that a few minutes had gone by without his tying anyone's spine into a knot. As Poppy and Ernest watched, a few other regulars, one at a time, risked sauntering up to the Radio Demon just to see what happened. From their table in the corner, they weren't able to hear the conversations; but in every case only a couple of polite sentences were exchanged before either the daring regulars shrugged and wandered off the other way, or—in the case of a few stupid enough or drunk enough to be persistent—the Radio Demon very gently shoved them several feet away with some sort of big shadowy tentacle things. He didn't even pick them up and fling them out the door. At a _minimum_ they'd expected that out of him. Some of the regulars would probably even deserve it. (Bulldozer Dave. Bulldozer Dave definitely deserved it.) The Radio Demon was on his best behavior.

Poppy nodded. "Okay. One hundred percent, no doubt, he's here to get laid."

"Bet nobody ever tries to pick up the Radio Demon." Ernest tittered; there was an edge of desperation to the sound. "He's probably as pent up as we are."

"If I was the Radio Demon and _I_ was as pent up as I am, I'd have burned half the city down by now," Poppy said. "But he _has_ turned down everyone that's come up to him so far. Maybe he's not that bad off."

"Maybe he's got really specific tastes? Or maybe they were acting like bigger skeezeballs than usual," Ernest said. "I mean. Would _you_ say yes to Bulldozer Dave?"

"He doesn't dig chicks."

"If he did."

Poppy stretched out her arms long enough to push herself partway up on the table so she could squint at Bulldozer Dave's usual spot and see how many drinks he'd had so far. "Nnno."

"Yeah."

Ernest leaned over slightly, as if that could help him see the Radio Demon's butt better from his seat. (It couldn't.) "Does he have a hanky?"

"I dunno, I can't see one."

"Neither can I. Maybe it's on the other side? Do you think the Radio Demon's a bottom?"

"He probably doesn't have one. Why would he bother when he's got that long coat—"

They froze like two burglars in a cop car's headlights as the Radio Demon's gaze swept over them again. This time, they were _sure_ , his gaze lingered for several seconds.

And then he looked on, and they both let out quiet sighs.

"Okay," Ernest said. "Which one of us is he looking at."

Poppy pointed at Ernest. "It's gotta be you, right? I mean, this is a _gay bar_. Guys don't come to gay bars to pick up chicks."

Ernest leaned away from Poppy, recoiling from the suggestion. "It might be you. Maybe he swings both ways. Cat guy swings both ways."

"How do you know!"

"He was watching Josie's butt couple weekends ago."

"So?! It's impossible not to watch her butt, it's hypnotizing. It's like..." Poppy attempted to pantomime the way it moved with her hands.

"I've never been hypnotized by her butt," Ernest said flatly. "Or maybe the Radio Demon hasn't realized you're a girl yet—"

"Do _not_ talk about my tits again."

"Or maybe he's got a snake tail fetish! Hey, a few years ago, wasn't he allied with, uhhh... what's his name." Ernest snapped his fingers a couple of times, trying to summon up the name. "What's his name with the eggs. You know the dude. The big bad dude they _never_ cover in U.S. history because every year you barely get up to the end of the Civil War and spend five minutes on carpetbaggers and Reconstruction, and then the teacher's like, 'oh yeah, and then this one guy traumatized half the planet,' just in time for summer break to start."

Poppy gave Ernest a completely blank look.

Emphatically, Ernest said, " _That_ dude."

Poppy said, "Sir Pantaloons."

"Exactly! You look just like him! Sorta. I don't think his arms retract."

Poppy retracted her arms just to decrease the resemblance further. "Yeah, but, _Ernest_."

"What?"

"This is a _gay bar_. So he's _gotta_ be looking at you."

Ernest grimaced. "Nooo..."

At the moment, the Radio Demon was well-behaved enough and the both of them were desperate enough that if he _was_ looking at one of them, they absolutely should approach him—but neither was quite desperate enough to _want_ to be the one he was looking at.

"Okay, how about this," Ernest said. "What if we... nod at him the next time he glances over."

"Nod at him."

"Yeah, this way." He tipped his short snout up a tiny bit. Poppy automatically copied it, slightly jerking her chin up. "Like that. We'll do it one at a time, see which one of us he nods back at."

"Okay," Poppy said, "yeah, good plan. You first."

"No, _you_ first."

"No, you—"

Their dead hearts leaped into their throats as the speaker nearest their table hissed and crackled with static, cutting the disco music off. After a moment, the music came back in the middle of a rock song, fuzzy like an AM broadcast: "— _come a little bit closer, I'm all alone, and the night is so long_."

They stared at each other in naked terror as drums and brass blared through the speaker.

" _So we started to dance—_ "

With another hiss of static, the music cut off again and returned to disco.

They glanced fearfully toward the bar.

The Radio Demon was looking straight at them. He slightly jerked his chin up.

They looked away from him. "Okay," Ernest whispered, "one of us has to go. No question. Which one of us—"

"This is a gay bar," Poppy hissed. " _Clearly_ the Radio Demon is gay."

"But—"

She uncurled her tail from her chair legs to swat his shins. "Go Ernest go Ernest go."

"Okay! Okay." He looked desperately around at their empty glasses, saw one that still had a thin layer of booze in the very bottom, tossed it back, and very casually and coolly stood up. He hoped the Radio Demon did not notice his knees shaking in a casual and cool manner.

He meandered on up to the front of the bar, attempting to casually sway his tail but in actuality just awkwardly jerking it back and forth. The Radio Demon's gaze never wavered from him. Ernest got as close to the Radio Demon as he dared—fortunately (and unsurprisingly), the seat next to him was still empty—leaned on the bar in a way that he told himself definitely didn't look forced or stiff, and he said... he said... what was he going to say.

He said... He said, " _Hey._ " He said it very suavely, he thought. And then he said, "Come here often?" and had to fight the urge to facepalm.

And the Radio Demon said, like some kind of person who'd never been on the receiving end of a pickup line in his life, "No!"

Ernest flinched, his frill almost flaring before draping back down over his shoulders. The volume was set just a little louder on the Radio Demon than he'd expected.

The Radio Demon's bright gaze twitched down for just a moment, studying how Ernest's frill move, before boring into his eyes again. He smiled a little wider. "First time, actually!"

"Oh." Ernest was attempting to figure out what to do with that statement—because he hadn't actually expected the Radio Demon to respond to the world's most common line like it was an actual conversation starter, and on top of that, he also hadn't quite expected to still be in one piece this long—

—when the Radio Demon said, tone almost conspiratorial, "You know, I was _hoping_ you might come over."

"Oh!" Not sure how to respond to that, Ernest said, "Thanks?"

"You're _quite_ welcome!" The tips of the Radio Demon's fingers were suddenly an inch from Ernest's sternum. "The name's Alastor! And you, my fine fellow?"

"Uh..." Ernest took his hand. It felt like touching the screen of a television, a thin barrier of static electricity hovering over the palm of his hand. "Ernest, sir."

"Ernest! A pleasure." Alastor shook his hand firmly as a round of applause broke out; Ernest had to look at the rest of the bar before he realized the sound had been produced by the Radio Demon himself. Alastor called back Ernest's attention with a quick squeeze of his hand. "You don't mind if I call you Ernie, do you?"

"Of course not, go ahead," Ernest said quickly. "Can—can I call you Al?"

Brightly, Alastor said, "Absolutely not!"

"Oh."

Alastor used his grip on Ernest's hand to jerk him over to his side and fling an arm around his back, squeezing his shoulder. Ernest found himself immediately regretting deciding to come to the bar shirtless. Even though he wasn't directly touching Alastor—Ernest didn't think he had a single inch of skin exposed below his jawline—he could have used another couple layers of fabric between himself and the most feared demon in Hell.

"So tell me," Alastor said. "How do you feel about dancing?"

Ernest's gaze automatically drifted over to the small dance floor at the back of the bar, and Alastor laughed, "No no no, not _this_ nonsense. _Proper_ dancing. Ballroom dancing!"

"Oh, I—don't really know how—"

"Would you like to learn?"

Ernest said, "Always wanted to," which happened to be true, but he couldn't imagine that there was any other acceptable answer to that question.

"Wonderful!" Alastor grabbed his glass off the bar, drained it with terrifying speed, shoved it in the cat guy's hands (to the cat guy's loud—and ignored—protests), and said, "Let's go!"

"Now? O-okay. Let me just—" He looked toward his seat with Poppy.

"Come!" Alastor hopped to his feet, arm still around Ernest's shoulders, and dragged him toward the door. "The night's still young, but it's not getting any younger!"

Ernest twisted around to give Poppy a desperate look. They never went off with someone they'd just met at a bar without telling the other where they were going, when they'd either call or get home, and at what point the other should assume they were being dismembered and come to the rescue. This was Hell. You didn't go on dates without the buddy system.

Poppy was halfway reared up, silently mouthing, " _What the fuck?!_ "

As well as he could with his shoulders pinned, Ernest gave her a baffled shrug.

She gave him a questioning thumbs up gesture?

He gave her an answering so-so gesture.

The last Ernest saw of Poppy, she was mouthing the word, " _Condom!_ " And then the door swung shut.

He glanced sideways at Alastor. Poppy had a point. Now that Ernest was this close to him, he could tell that the Radio Demon looked kind of... well, not so much "dirty" as "undusted." Like an antique figurine forgotten in the back of a grandmother's curio cabinet, collecting grime in the cracks of its sculpted hair and eyes. And he had a scent to him—he didn't quite _stink_ so much as he smelled... slightly overheated, slightly like old clothes hanging in a closet that hadn't been opened in a decade. Plenty of people in Hell smelled dead—you held your nose and dealt with it if you had to—but most of them smelled dead like a corpse. Alastor smelled dead like a ghost, and somehow that was more disconcerting.

Usually (and despite Poppy's judgment) Ernest preferred to risk it without a condom—it was amazing how many things Hell's mostly-mammalian population _couldn't_ pass on to lizards—but in this case? In this case, he thought he'd appreciate an extra little rubber barrier between their bodies.

Assuming they got that far.

Somehow, he didn't think they would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical references! Mostly just music references tbh.
> 
> \- I've been picturing the car dealership as some fusion of [this](https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/3339756927/in/album-72157620684538381/) and [this](https://www.flickr.com/photos/autohistorian/4198676799/in/album-72157620684538381/). Fun fact, up until the last 20-30 years, a [front bench instead of separate seats](https://jalopnik.com/why-front-bench-seats-went-away-1776706852) was standard/default in most vehicles.
> 
> \- Alastor was probably dancing to an instrumental arrangement of "[Begin the Beguine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNcPnEc99UE)," but the lyrics are [here](https://genius.com/8775104) and also are probably why he was drawn to the song. The song became a hit a few years after Alastor's death, but I headcanon he actually kept up with new music (and even technology!) for a few decades after his death, and only gradually regressed to mentally living in the 20s/30s and shunning modern advancements. (In particular, in this "Alastor & Sir Pent are exes" 'verse, Alastor's interest in exploring new things came to a hard stop after the break up.)
> 
> \- The song on the radio about "rain falling like pearls" is "[The Grave](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p05aJNfWib8)" ([lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donmclean/thegrave.html)). The album _American Pie_ came out in 1971, I headcanon that it takes about five years for new pop culture to ooze from the living world into Hell, and the fic takes place around 1976. Since Hell is full of depressed dead people, I figured "The Grave" would be their chart-topping hit off of _American Pie_ instead of the title song.
> 
> \- In '76, newspapers cost about 20 cents. The cashier tried to charge Alastor 40 cents. Inflation in Hell sucks.
> 
> \- I'm pretty sure the terms "scalies" and "furries" didn't exist in 1976, but I decided they were invented early in Hell since like a quarter of the population turned into their fursonas when they died.
> 
> \- The hanky in Ernest's back pocket (and tied around Husk's arm) is a reference to [handkerchief code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code)—mlm looking to hook up wore a hanky on the left side if they wanted to top/dom, on the right if they wanted to bottom/sub, and used different colors for different kinks.
> 
> \- The song Alastor plays to call Ernest over is "[Come a Little Bit Closer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuWkVqum6a8)" ([lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jaytheamericans/comealittlebitcloser.html)).
> 
> Post for the fic available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623299328740671488/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-17). Comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually I'm gonna give you reference pics for Ernest and Poppy and they're going to be two terrible photoshops of 90s cartoon characters because I don't wanna draw them.

Ernest unlocked his door at five in the morning, tried to push it open, found it stopped by the little chain inside, shut it, and knocked to try to wake Poppy.

He was answered with a heavy thud against the door, and then several seconds of scrabbling and scraping near the lock. Finally the door opened a crack.

He pushed it open until it met resistance, poked his head in, and said, "Hey. I thought I was gonna die." He blinked blearily downward. "Why are you on the floor?"

Poppy, a chaotically tangled noodle just in front of the door, said, "I didn't want to get my arms out and tried to open the door with my mouth and fell."

"Ah." Ernest blinked again. "Are you still drunk?"

" _No_ , I was _asleep_." Poppy wriggled away from the door, finally extending one arm to help herself back up. "Fell asleep by the door waiting for you. I thought he was gonna kill you."

"Oh," Ernest said. " _I'm_ still drunk."

Poppy scooted fully away from the door. It swung open.

Ernest stumbled in, tripped on the cuffs of his own jeans, and tumbled over Poppy.

They both decided that maybe it was safer to just lay there for a few seconds.

###

"So then we break into a _warehouse_ ," Ernest said, flopped dramatically across the saggy old couch. "And I'm thinking, 'Oh, great, an empty warehouse at one in the morning alone with the Radio Demon. I am either going to be killed and devoured or I am going to be railed so hard I temporarily go blind.'"

In the kitchenette, making eggs for her current hangover and Ernest's impending hangover, Poppy said, "Well, you haven't been devoured—"

"He didn't rail me either."

"Damn," Poppy said. "Why'd you break into a warehouse?"

"To dance!"

"That—That doesn't... That doesn't answer the question."

" _I know!_ "

As Poppy cooked, Ernest recounted the date. They'd broken into a warehouse. Or rather, Alastor had broken in, while Ernest sort of stood there and watched him do it. ("His name is _Aleister?_ Like the magician cultist guy?" "Aleister Crowley?" "Yeah, him." "I... have no idea. Maybe he _is_ Aleister Crowley. He seems like a really 'do what thou wilt' kind of guy.") Alastor had shoved aside several towering shelves with some sort of eldritch bullshit that was going to haunt Ernest's nightmares, cleared a bit of empty floor, and spent several hours teaching Ernest how to waltz. Yes. The waltz. They'd waltzed. They had practiced the actual waltz, and only the waltz, and no other dances. And then they'd broken into the employee break room, stolen a six-pack of beer from the fridge, and split it.

And then Alastor had told Ernest when and where the second date was going to be. He didn't ask. He just told him.

And then Ernest had headed home as fast as possible.

"Did you zigzag?"

"What?"

"On the way home," Poppy said. "If you want to go on a date with the Radio Demon, that's your business, but I don't want him following you home and finding out where _I_ live."

"I didn't _want_ to go on a date with him, he _kidnapped_ me. No, I didn't zigzag."

Poppy tisked, but, considering that Ernest had crawled home at five in the morning, decided to show mercy and skip the scolding. After a silent moment focused on cooking, Poppy rendered her judgment on the strange tale: "Sounds boring."

From underneath the flat couch pillow, Ernest asked, "What part of my near-death experience sounds _boring_ to you?"

Poppy plopped a plate on Ernest's stomach, making him flinch, and then coiled up on a bean bag chair with her own. "The part where you spent several hours doing the waltz. Like some kinda prude in a powdered wig."

Ernest sat up and surveyed his plate: a slice of toast with a slightly wiggly egg and Tabasco sauce. "Actually. Did you know the waltz was considered scandalous when it was invented."

Poppy blinked very slowly and said, "No," in a way that usually ended a conversation.

"That's what Alastor said." Ernest took a bite of his toast, gagged, and spat it back out. "My egg's raw."

Poppy craned her neck and rose up slightly to see. "No, it's not."

"The yolk's still liquid!"

"It's over easy. I'm trying a new recipe." The sum total of the new recipe was "cook the egg over easy."

"It's gross." He shook it off the toast, put the plate on the couch next to himself, and started eating the toast from the corner that wasn't soaked in yolk.

"If you don't want the egg I lovingly cooked for you, _I'll_ eat it," Poppy said. "Was dancing the waltz as scandalous as the Radio Demon made it out to be?"

Ernest stopped chewing as he considered the question. "Eh." He shrugged. "It was... kinda hot."

Poppy raised an eyebrow.

"Kinda hot, but also terrifying."

"I think you _think_ it was hot. You pop boners when you're intimidated."

"That's _not_ true. There just happens to be a lot of overlap between guys that are hot and guys that are intimidating." Ernest paused. "I'm not sure if I even think he's hot. He kind of smells like burning dust."

It wasn't until then that Poppy recognized and identified a scent that had been hanging vaguely around Ernest since he came in: not quite "burning dust," but something like the scent of old machines filling cardboard boxes and plastic bins in a discount electronics surplus store. She grimaced. "He smells like burning dust and you're _not sure_ whether you think he's hot?"

"Yeah—well—I..." Ernest gestured with his toast. He gestured with his toast again. Poppy wasn't sure what he was trying to gesture at. After a moment he said, lamely, "It's been a while."

Poppy snorted.

"I'm—It was confusing! I... _think_ it was a good date?" Ernest said. "It was a very _weird_ date. I figure 'weird' is probably the only kind of date I can expect out of the Radio Demon. But—but I didn't get ripped to pieces! I think I can call that a good date."

"Yeah, I like that optimistic perspective," Poppy said. "Keep your standards dirt low and he'll keep meeting them."

"With the Radio Demon, I'm setting my standards six feet underground." Ernest regarded his toast thoughtfully, trying to decide how close he wanted to get to the yolk. "And we _do_ have a second date, so, I guess it must have gone well. I guess _he_ thinks it went well."

Poppy finished her toast, stretched out several feet across the floor to set the plate on the couch beside Ernest, and took his plate with the egg back with her to her bean bag. "He didn't even ask if you _wanted_ a second date? He just... scheduled it for you?"

"What would I have done if he _had_ asked. Say _no?_ To _him?_ "

Poppy shrugged. Fair. "Where's it going to be?" The buddy system wasn't useful if the both of them didn't know when and where each other's dates were going to be.

"At that fairground they only use in May and around Halloween, next week at ten p.m.—"

"He's gonna strap you to a stone altar and take your liver out."

"Shut up. Yeah. Probably. Shut up." Having finally nibbled as much of his toast as he could, he turned to set the rest down on his plate and stared, wondering where the egg he'd left on the plate had gone. He looked around on the floor for it. "If you don't hear back from me by the next morning, you know where to look for my pieces."

"The _next morning_. Do you think you're actually gonna take him home next week?" Because from Poppy's perspective, nothing about Ernest's story or body language at all indicated that he was in sex-on-the-second-date territory.

Ernest laughed harshly. "Hell no. If he wants to fuck, I'm getting a hotel room. I don't want him to know where I live any more than you do."

"You know what I mean. Is _he_ going to want to fuck."

"I have _no_ idea." Ernest slouched down, head sinking into the saggy cushion on the back of the couch, and shut his eyes. "He doesn't give off those vibes, but—he doesn't give off any other vibes, either. He's giving off radio transmissions instead of vibes. I'm gonna prepare for anything."

"Take a condom." Poppy put the second empty plate back on the couch, pulled her arms back into her shoulders, and sank deeper into the bean bag chair. "Is he a top or a bottom?"

"Wh—" Ernest spread his hands wide without bothering to sit up. "How should I know? I was trying to dance well enough that he wouldn't want to cut my feet off! I wasn't exactly checking his ass for hankies!"

"Well, did he teach you to dance as the lead or the follow?" Poppy's coils shifted looser and then tighter as she got comfortable.

"That doesn't prove anything! It doesn't work that way! You can prefer to lead and like taking it up the ass." Ernest paused. "Hhhow do I tell which is the lead, exactly?"

Poppy automatically extended her arms again, positioned to hold an imaginary dance partner. "Did he put your hand on his shoulder or his waist?"

"Uh—both. He told me I should learn it both ways."

"A- _ha_ ," Poppy said knowingly. She pulled her arms back in. "A switch."

Ernest grumbled.

"Take _two_ condoms."

Ernest grumbled harder.

###

Going on a date with the Radio Demon was like taking a five hour trip to the Twilight Zone. Ernest wasn't entirely sure what the Twilight Zone was, but from the context it was used in, he gathered that it was some sort of literary reference that postdated him and that ending up in the Zone was something like getting kidnapped by fairies.

Seeing Alastor from a distance waiting cheerily in the empty midway, like a ragged red banner standing between two rows of empty concession stands, looking like a carny that had been abandoned at the fairground to wait with the dilapidated buildings for the next fair to pass through—Ernest felt very much like he was walking up to a fairy waiting to kidnap him and drag him to the Twilight Zone.

The impression wasn't at all dispersed when Alastor caught sight of Ernest, held up a basket and two bottles of bourbon, and announced—through a speaker that Ernest hadn't even noticed until Alastor's voice was coming from behind and above him—"I brought dinner!"

Ernest knew full well what happened to people who wandered into fairy territory and took their food.

He accepted dinner anyway.

Alastor swept the leaves and dirt off of a picnic table near the midway. One of his bourbon bottles was almost empty, so he carefully poured half of the second one into the first and handed it over to Ernest before he started unpacking his basket. Some kind of meat stew and cornbread—"Prepared by yours truly," Alastor said, and Ernest was surprised by the discovery that the Radio Demon cooked almost as much as by the discovery that the Radio Demon consumed something other than blood, booze, radio waves, and nightmares.

Once they were settled with the food and drinks spread out in front of them, Alastor's grin stretched wider. Ernest was beginning to think that Alastor never actually stopped smiling—he just shrank his smile a little bit when no one was looking so he could stretch it out again when he felt like he needed to get more intimidating. "So," Alastor said. "Tell me about yourself, Ernie!"

Ernest almost choked on his stew. "What?"

Alastor's smile just kept finding ways to get wider. It didn't make Ernest feel safe. " _Tell me_ about yourself."

"Uh..."

As Ernest struggled to think of an answer, Alastor stretched one hand across the table—Ernest sat perfectly still—and dragged one claw tip down Ernest's flared frill, along one of the narrow bones that kept it propped up. "Why, if I didn't know better, I'd think the question frightened you." He sat back. "Surely you're not scared of talking about yourself for a couple of minutes! Or is it your present company?"

Ernest clapped his hands around his neck and flattened his frill down over his shoulders. "No! No, I, uh..." He paused and reconsidered how convincing that actually sounded. "Yes, actually. You're the most intimidating person I've ever met. I don't think dying scared me as much as you do."

"You flatter me!" Alastor's invisible audience cooed as if that was the sweetest thing they'd ever heard. "How _did_ you die, by the by?"

"Decapitation."

Alastor's bright gaze flicked down from Ernest's eyes to his neck. He stretched across the table again, this time curling his claw under the edge of Ernest's frill, examining the bright red line that ran around the very edge of it. "Fascinating," Alastor said, "the many ways it's marked."

It was a good thing Ernest was already pinning his frill down, because it would have just risen back up. Unfortunately, with the Radio Demon's full attention blazing on him like a spotlight and his sharp fingers trailing such tender touches so dangerously close to his throat, his frill wasn't the only part of his anatomy attempting to rise up, and there wasn't very much he could do to pin the other part down. Maybe Poppy was right: maybe he did pop boners when he was intimidated. He hoped Alastor said something extremely unsexy before dinner was over.

Alastor drew his hand back again. "There, you see?" he said. "You're already telling me about yourself. Not so scary at all, now is it?"

Well, Ernest didn't think it had increased his odds of getting tortured. "How did _you_ die?"

"I didn't. I just moved in once I'd collected enough souls to open a portal to Hell and make an impressive entrance."

Ernest stared at Alastor.

Alastor smiled at Ernest.

Ernest said, "You're saying you're still alive."

"I didn't say that," Alastor said, casually readjusting his bangs with one hand. "I said I never died." He sipped from his bottle while his studio audience quietly chuckled.

Ernest added this to his mental list of evidence for the "Radio Demon is Aleister Crowley" theory.

By the time dinner was over, what Alastor had learned about Ernest included his favorite author, his favorite food, his favorite movies, his favorite music—they'd spent a fair amount of time on that one—his birth and death years, his top five best theories as to which things he'd done were the ones that had qualified him for a spot in Hell, the names of most of his immediate family and why he couldn't stand a damn one of them, when his ancestors had moved to America, who his friends were and which ones he'd made pre- and postmortem, what barhopping schedule and routine he and Poppy typically kept in their desperate and never-ending quest for a little bit of damn company and maybe a good time, what his job was (although he managed to keep secret that he'd recently been fired), why he was generally rather opposed to wearing shirts and considered shoes little better...

By the time dinner was over, what Ernest had learned about Alastor was that he was such an engaging and interesting listener that it was easy not to notice that his every snappy comment and reply redirected the conversation to his partner without revealing a thing about himself—and that he was a pretty good cook. What Ernest _didn't_ know covered everything else, including what kind of meat was in the stew.

"I should have guessed sooner that you're a woodworker," Alastor said, arm slung around Ernest's shoulders again as he dragged him away from the picnic table. "I remember thinking to myself after our last meeting, 'Ernie there _must_ work with tools of some kind.' And lo and behold!" He chucked the entire picnic basket in the trash, including the dutch oven that had held the stew.

Ernest watched in disbelief as it disappeared. "You—you don't want your basket?"

"Oh, it's not mine," Alastor said. "Of course, _I'd_ thought you must be an electrician or a mechanic—you know, something that had you working with machinery. But woodworking! Yes, that explains it, doesn't it?"

Ernest was half turned around staring at the trash can that had swallowed the totally innocent picnic basket; it took him a moment to catch up with Alastor's conversation. "Explains what?"

"Your hands!" Alastor spun on one foot to swing around in front of Ernest, resettling the arm he'd slung around Ernest's neck onto his shoulder and pulling up his other hand; startled, Ernest immediately put his hand on Alastor's hip, just like he'd learned on their first date. "You're used to working with your hands. It's obvious."

"Really?" Ernest stumbled, trying to remember the steps from their first date. He suddenly found himself very conscious of the callouses on his fingers and of all the places where their hands touched each other. "You can—you can tell that through the, uh, glove and everything?"

"Of course. It's all in your grip." Alastor's grip squeezed tighter. The sharp tips of his nails lightly dug into the scaly skin on the back of Ernest's hand.

It would seem that Ernest now had incontrovertible proof that he did, in fact, pop boners when he was intimidated. "Sorry." He swallowed hard. "I'm not used to, uh... how you're supposed to hold someone when you're dancing—"

"Now, now! Did I say it was bad?" Alastor tugged Ernest into a spin. "I happen to like how your grip feels."

"Oh—"

"Very, _very_ much so." When Alastor's eyelids slid down to half-lidded like this, it made what little Ernest could see of his eyes seem to glow brighter. For a split second, Alastor's grin widened to flash his fangs; just before his lips closed, Ernest swore he glimpsed the tip of Alastor's tongue sliding teasingly over the points of his sharp teeth.

Ernest's heart leapt up into his throat and his dick leapt up against his jeans zipper. He desperately hoped Alastor wasn't about to pull their hips any closer together.

To Ernest's relief, Alastor almost immediately let go, breaking off their dance in order to walk beside him and sling an arm over his shoulder again. "So!" He gestured around at the dark fairground with his cane—where had his cane come from?—taking in all the abandoned attractions and rides. "Where to? I was thinking the hall of mirrors! Get a good look from every angle, you know, really get a full appreciation of your dance style as you practice. Unless you have a better idea..."

Ernest did not have a better idea. They went to the hall of mirrors. The speakers played crackly old music. He couldn't be quite sure—dancing meant they were constantly shifting through the mirrors, too fast to focus on any of their distorted images—but he had the strange feeling that the Radio Demons reflected in the mirrors were all staring at him. If not the reflections, then the shadows between them.

The eerie feeling lasted for all of three minutes, until Alastor said, "Come now, you can get a little closer than _that_ ," pulled Ernest's hips against his, and immediately stopped both the dancing and the music with his eyes wide. Ernest froze in terror, far too aware of his boner now pressed to Alastor's thigh. They stared at each other in shock.

And then Alastor was across the room, leaning against one of the mirrors, his invisible studio audience shrieking in laughter. Alastor himself was laughing so hard he had to summon up his cane again to help him keep balance—and even that wasn't enough to save him from sliding to the floor, wheezing.

Face burning and frill flared, Ernest shuffled out of the hall of mirrors.

He wasn't sure whether the shadowy shapes he saw in his peripheral vision were actually separate forms, watching him from the dark between the many mirrors, or if they were Ernest's own distorted reflections. But he was pretty sure they were laughing at him, too.

###

Poppy picked up her phone with the tip of her tail and held it somewhere around the approximate location of what might be her head. "Mhllo?"

"Hey. Just calling to say the date's over and I'm heading home and I haven't been dismembered."

"What?" It took Poppy several seconds to remember the date, which followed spending several seconds trying to figure out who in the universe she was talking to. "Oh. Went good?"

"No, it was the worst date of my life. Afterlife."

"S'nice." Poppy dropped the phone and fell back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post for this chapter available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623376444533424128/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-27). Comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)!


	3. Chapter 3

"Come on," Poppy said. "It's been over a week, get over it. At least pretend you're gonna have a good time."

"No." Ernest glowered at the sidewalk as they trudged the familiar route to the gay bar. "You can't make me." He kicked a cigarette butt. It didn't move, just smeared across the sidewalk.

Poppy tisked. "Well, if you're gonna sulk, at least do it _properly_. I don't want a repeat of '71 where you just sulked at the bar without ordering anything after what's-it dumped you. You did that _all summer_."

Ernest grumbled.

Poppy extended an arm to elbow him. "I'm trying to get laid too," she griped. "I don't want to babysit you while you grieve over the fact that the Radio Demon laughed at your cock. What about that vampire guy, Damien—"

"Dorian."

"Why don't you call him up? He's probably forgiven you for whatever you did that pissed him off."

" _He_ pissed _me_ off. And I don't wanna fuck 'im."

Poppy stared at Ernest. "Since when are _you_ in a position to be picky?" she asked. "Did you really get your heart _that_ set on fucking the Radio Demon? The _Radio Demon_."

"You don't get to talk," Ernest muttered. "You spent like four months trying to seduce that butch with half of Noah's Ark tattooed on her."

"Okay, first, she could pick me up with one hand and tie my tail in knots. That's hot," Poppy said. "Second, she wasn't _the Radio Demon_."

Ernest grumbled again.

As the bar came up, Poppy said, "Just get _something_ to drink. You can sip at it morosely, I don't give a shit. I don't wanna drink alone."

Ernest looked up distrustfully at the sign over the bar. "Sure. One drink," he muttered.

They pushed open the door. Poppy glanced around the bar and didn't see anyone worth talking to. Typical. A pair of large red wings caught her eye. "Oh. It's the cat what dragged in the Radio Demon." She rolled her eyes, slithered onto a free stool, and wrapped her tail around it. "Whaddaya want to drink?"

Ernest didn't reply.

Poppy glanced back. Ernest had disappeared.

Poppy whipped around again. Ernest was already halfway to the cat. Poppy looked up at the ceiling, sighed, and unwound from her bar stool to follow him.

"Hey!" Ernest said. "Alastor's friend!"

"He ain't no friend of mine," said the cat, and only then actually focused on the person talking to him. "Oh. _You_. You're uh... Ernie?"

"Ernest," he corrected.

"Husk," the cat said. "Yeah, the fucker told me to keep an eye out for you."

"Did he?!" asked Ernest, with what sounded like something between eagerness and relief, which Poppy thought was the exact opposite of the reaction somebody should have to news that the Radio Demon was currently looking for them. "Is he—? I mean— I acted like a complete idiot, just... accidentally grinding on him and then running out like that—"

Husk barked a laugh, which was a weird sound to hear coming out of a cat. "Is _that_ what happened?"

"Did I blow it?" Ernest asked miserably. "It's been over a week and I haven't heard anything from him—"

"Yeah, I know," Husk cut in. "That's because he doesn't have any fuckin' way to contact you. No number, no address..." Husk paused. "Which is smart, by the way. Don't give him your contact info. You'll regret it for the rest of your afterlife."

"Has he been looking for me?"

Husk gestured to get the bartender's attention, and then nodded. "At every damned carpentry business in the phone book."

Poppy hissed. "Yikes."

"Oh, thank fuck," Ernest said, sinking down onto the stool next to Husk and leaning backward against the bar. "Yeah, he wouldn't find me. I got fired, uh... a month ago." He hadn't wanted to admit to Alastor that he was currently unemployed.

"Woulda saved him a lot of time if you'd told him that," Husk said. "Glad you didn't. Kept him occupied for a week." He snorted, then accepted a large mug from the bartender and chugged it back.

Poppy stared at Ernest. "'Thank fuck'?" she repeated, incredulous. "Are you _kidding?_ " She slid onto the stool next to him. "You're being stalked. By the Radio Demon."

Ernest shrugged. "Sometimes your date stalks you. It happens." This was, in fact, not an inaccurate analysis of how dating in Hell typically went. "But it means he's still interested! Right?" He turned to Husk. "Right?"

Still chugging, Husk gave Ernest a thumbs up.

Ernest heaved a sigh of relief.

Poppy irritably uncoiled and recoiled her tail around her bar stool. "You are _way_ too happy to find out the Radio Demon is scouring the city for you."

Husk nodded, thudding his mug back on the bar top. "She's right."

At least Husk had the right perspective, even if he had terrible taste in company. Poppy asked, "You're not a fan of him either, huh?"

Husk laughed sharply. " _Nope._ "

Poppy elbowed Ernest—see, look, even the Radio Demon's friends aren't friends with him.

Ernest elbowed Poppy back, and then said to Husk, "Look, can you get him a message for me? Tell him I'm sorry for running out on—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell him yourself. I ain't _nobody's_ messenger," Husk snapped; then said grudgingly, "Except his, I guess. Here." He offered an envelope.

Ernest snatched it, ripped it open, and started reading the letter.

Poppy leaned over his shoulder to see: cursory non-specific apology for how the last date went, a proposed make-up date—this one was during the day and in public, at least. She looked up at Husk. "So if you're not his messenger, what _are_ you?" she asked. "Why'd you come in with him in the first place? What's he looking for?" She refused to believe that the Radio Demon had come in looking for a quick lay.

"Heh! Right, Alastor was trying to"—rolling his eyes, Husk curved his claws in exaggerated finger quotes—"' _meet people,_ ' but he's got _no_ idea how to do that on his own. So we made a deal. I'd scope out a few meetup spots for a few nights, let him know what kind of people show up, he picks a place that sounds alright, and then I spend one night sitting by him to soften up the room to him." Husk shrugged, grimacing. "It's hard to hate a guy who has a cat, huh?"

So their initial theory had been right. Something about the way Husk phrased it gave Poppy the sudden mental image of Alastor sitting in a tall wingback chair with Husk curled up in his lap like the spoiled pet of a comic book villain.

"And in _return_ , once Alastor's got what he wanted and left, _I_ get everyone in the bar swarming me for the next few nights because they wanna get a taste of the big badass who hangs out with the Radio Demon." Giving them a wicked smirk, Husk pulled his wallet out of one of his spats. "Check this out." He pulled a dozen cocktail napkins out of his wallet and fanned them out, showing off their phone numbers.

Poppy eyed the napkins enviously. "That's... not a bad setup, actually."

"You're probably gonna get swarmed next," Husk said to Ernest. "Just—send anybody you aren't interested in back my way, huh?"

"Hey," Poppy said to Ernest. "Imagine that. You, with options in _this_ dump."

For a moment, she thought Ernest was still too engrossed in re-reading his letter to pay attention to their conversation. But then he glanced over at Husk. "You made a 'deal' with him? I thought bargaining with Alastor was a death sentence." (Poppy was grimly relieved to hear Ernest _did_ still have some self-preservation around Alastor.)

"Oh, hah, yeah—no. It depends on what the deal is for. And how dumb it is," Husk said. "Anyway, I kinda _owe_ him, so sometimes he wrangles me into doing dumb shit like this. Can't really say no."

Poppy and Ernest considered that silently a moment. He "owed" the Radio Demon—they both knew what _that_ meant. That was something everyone knew about the Radio Demon: he was one of those types that dealt in souls. The _really_ dangerous motherfuckers. Husk must have traded his soul for something.

"So... wait," Poppy said. "You made a deal with him, and he's using that hold over you to get you to help him pick up guys in gay bars?"

Husk let out a long sigh. "Yeah. He's using his hold over me to get me to help him pick up guys in gay bars. That's pretty much par for the course for the favors he calls in."

"That's—actually kind of great."

Ernest leaned toward Husk, finally stuffing the letter into his back pocket. "What's the dumbest favor he ever asked you for?"

"One time, he asked me to give him a haircut when he was too close to blackout drunk to do it himself." Husk snorted. "I wasn't much less drunk. What matters is it grew back out." He picked his mug back up, paused, and amended himself. "No—what _really_ matters is that the next time he woke up, Alastor thought it was funny."

Poppy cackled. "Okay, is this part of the—the bit?"

Husk cocked an eyebrow. "The 'bit'?"

"The whole soften-people-up-to-Alastor thing," Poppy clarified. "Because between the dumb favors and the haircut, you're doing a pretty good job of trying to make the big bad Radio Demon sound... uh..."

Ernest offered, "Kinda fun and quirky?"

Poppy grimaced; she wouldn't go _that_ far. "Nnnot like a dangerous, vicious killer that could turn on you at any time."

"Oh, no no, he's actually _all_ those things," Husk hastened to assure them. "Except the last one. He doesn't just randomly turn on people. See, Alastor sorta decides whether someone is on his 'entertainment' list or 'destroy' list within about three minutes of meeting them. Once you're on a list, you don't come off. He doesn't suddenly change his mind on you because of something small you did. He might even make an exception for, uh, humping his leg."

Ernest muttered embarrassed denials, pinning down his frill as it tried to flare.

"So, relax around him. Alastor's not a land mine," Husk said. "He's a _time bomb_. And either the wire on the bomb was cut during your first meeting with him, or it wasn't."

Poppy said, "That's not actually as reassuring as I think you think it is."

"It's _kinda_ reassuring," Ernest said.

Husk said, "Look, you've gone out with him how many times now?"

Glumly, Ernest said, "Only twice."

"And he's been running all over town trying to track you down—he ask you out a third time in that letter?"

"Yeah. I mean, I think so. He called it a meeting, but—yeah."

Husk considered that, and then shrugged and nodded. "Yeah. S'fine. Sounds like you're entertainment. Congrats. Now you're _never_ gonna get rid of him."

###

"Let me start by apologizing for my inconsiderate behavior at our last meeting!" As soon as they'd had an opportunity to greet each other, Alastor was slinging his arm around Ernest's shoulder and hauling him down the sidewalk. "I cannot begin to imagine how humiliated you must have felt. I am _so_ sorry." Even when he was apologizing, he sounded like a particularly amused racetrack announcer.

"Oh," Ernest said, some of the tension draining out of his back. "Yeah, um. Thanks. And I wanted to apologize too—"

"No no—I understand completely. It was hardly in your control. They tend to sprout up all by themselves! Even _I_ have to deal with it." Alastor rolled his eyes, shook his head, and sighed, as if he was discussing a particularly tenacious weed species that was troubling both of their vegetable gardens. "After my reaction, I'm sure you must think—Well, I don't know _what_ you think! But allow me to reassure you."

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, holding Ernest by his shoulders out at arm's length—and essentially completely blocking off the sidewalk for how wide a berth the other pedestrians were giving the Radio Demon. People started walking into the street to get around Alastor and Ernie.

"My reaction was _purely_ one of surprise! Not judgment, not, oh... I don't know—disgust? Whatever you've been imagining. I just... hadn't thought you might react like that until you did! And _then_ , it seemed so obvious—in truth, I, uh..." Alastor chuckled faintly. "See? There I go again—I was laughing at myself as much as you."

That was a lot less damning than Ernest had been expecting. "Oh. Then—"

"Am I forgiven?" Alastor cut in.

"Yeah! Of course. And—"

"Wonderful!" Alastor pulled Ernest back in, slinging an arm around his shoulders again and marching with him down the street. "Really, that _should_ have occurred to me sooner. But I..." He paused, weighing his words for a second; but that one second was the most time Ernest had ever seen Alastor spend thinking over his words. "I just... don't move that fast. I know _most_ people do these days—especially in Hell, there are absolutely _no_ standards down here! But myself? I'm afraid I'm a bit... old-fashioned. That sort of thing isn't on my mind until I've gotten to know someone—well—better than you and I know each other yet."

Ernest's heart soared at the _yet_. "It's fine! I don't mind, I like old-fashioned!"

A sly smile that made Ernest's stomach flip curled the corners of Alastor's mouth. "You don't say."

Ernest averted his gaze. Alastor had too many smiles and all of them were good-looking. "And, I'm sorry for running off before you could explain—"

"No no no, think nothing of it. You did nothing wrong!" Alastor paused thoughtfully for a moment, a faint cymbal roll playing to keep his claim on his turn to talk. Voice lowered and glancing sideways at Ernest, Alastor said, "Although maybe next time, you might want to put some underpants on." The cymbal roll resolved into a rim shot.

Ernest's frill tried to flare out. Pinned beneath Alastor's arm, it just fluttered self-consciously. "Yeah," he croaked. "Good idea."

Alastor's thumb ran along Ernest's frill, pressing it against his shoulder. That just made it try to flare out again—both because of how unexpectedly affectionate the gesture was and because of how public it was. The nearest pedestrians were all averting their eyes from the Radio Demon; Ernest hoped the ones farther away weren't trying to look too closely.

Voice even lower, Alastor said, "It's very _active_ , isn't it? That hood of yours?"

"Frill," Ernest mumbled, staring at his feet.

"Adorable," Alastor murmured, and Ernest felt his breath stop.

Alastor dragged Ernest to a club owned by someone he knew—it looked like a bar that fell out of the twenties, and it was the only place they'd been to yet that made Alastor look like a normal person. Alastor talked to Ernest for maybe an hour, told him when the next date was going to be, and sent him on his way.

They didn't even dance.

Maybe they _did_ have a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter post available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623458329423937536/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-37). Comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)! Particularly since I'm updating this daily and the fic is sorta, y'know, tagged with two ships that probably don't have much of an overlapping audience—I ain't getting a lot of feedback currently, so I'm extra grateful for any reactions y'all wanna share.


	4. Chapter 4

Alastor and Ernest had gone on half a dozen dates now.

Ernest's initial assessment remained unchanged. Going on a date with the Radio Demon was like a five hour trip to the Twilight Zone; and ending the date and walking away was like waking up from a scary but vaguely arousing dream. Like a dream about being paralyzed in bed while Dracula kissed his throat. Or that dream Ernest had one time about getting a blow job from Lucifer.

Ernest was fully aware of what a dangerous path he was walking.

But, although Alastor had never said so, Ernest was pretty sure that when he nailed this "switching the leads in the middle of the song" trick Alastor wanted to do, he was definitely finally gonna get laid. And if Alastor was half as intense in bed as he was when he really got into a dance routine, Ernest was probably never gonna be able to walk again.

He was beginning to think it was worth the wait.

###

Tonight, they were dancing on the roof of a hotel. Ernest wasn't sure what hotel it was, except that it looked like the kind of place that served guests who had paid more for their socks than Ernest had paid for his entire closet, that nobody in the hotel had made a move to stop Alastor as he swept in with Ernest behind him and headed for the stairs, and that it had a _whole lot_ of stairs.

"It's worth the climb for the view!" said Alastor, whom Ernest was now sure must not need to breathe. There was some sweet smell lingering around Alastor that Ernest couldn't quite identify, and by the time they reached the top of the stairs, it was less enticing and more dizzying.

Still, leaning on the railing around the rooftop courtyard, Ernest could see what Alastor meant: the view was astounding. The night sky was a deep ruby red; the lights of Pentagram City glittered out of the silhouette of a black skyline; not a cloud obscured the glowing pentagram on the moon or the cold, electric-blue light of Heaven. This high above the ground, the wind whipped fast enough to cancel out Hell's usual sultry heat, and even the gunshots in the alleys far below were more muffled. He'd never seen Hell from this angle before.

"What did I tell you?" Alastor boasted, elbowing Ernest as he leaned against the railway next to him.

"You were right." Ernest watched as an aircraft lined with golden lights lazily drifted across the sky. It took him a moment to realize that the aircraft was moving too slowly and the silhouette was too football-shaped for it to be a plane. "Oh wow, is that—one of those airships? I haven't seen those in years. I thought they were all destroyed."

"They were!" Alastor said; and only belatedly did Ernest remember that Alastor had been the one to destroy all of them, because Alastor was, in fact, _still_ the Radio Demon, and not just Ernest's terrifyingly charismatic maybe-almost-boyfriend.

Alastor went on, "This is the first one to go back up in a decade."

"Wow. I thought he gave up. How long's he been back in the air?" Ernest wondered. "Gonna shoot it down again?"

Alastor had left the railing before Ernest had a chance to finish his second question. "It launched just short of a fortnight ago. Quite the heartwarming picture, isn't it? Triumph over adversity and all that." Alastor's tone almost always had a layer of artificially saccharine joviality layered over it; but right now, even his radio-ready good cheer was coming across as flat.

Ernest turned to glance at Alastor.

He was striding to the center of the courtyard. "Come, now! Did we come up here to stare at the sky or to get down to business?"

Well, that was for Alastor to decide and Ernest to find out, wasn't it? Ernest didn't tend to be the one deciding what they were doing on any given date. (Which was, admittedly, probably for the best. His creativity on date nights didn't tend to venture very far past "restaurant?" and "a show?" and "sex?" and the biannual "the one interesting local event he accidentally learned about on TV.")

"And business is..." Ernest prompted. "The usual?"

"The usual!" Alastor declared, gesturing broadly with his cane—and then casually tossing it aside, straight off the roof. Ernest watched in bewilderment as it vanished over the edge. He was gonna take it on faith that that thing was going to disappear before it hit the ground. "What a way to put it, though. I hope you're not saying you're getting _bored_ of our little lessons? Just when you're finally getting good?"

"Am I?"

"Of course! Haven't you noticed?" Alastor extended a hand to Ernest. "Because I certainly have. _Very_ impressive."

Smiling self-consciously, rubbing his neck with one hand to hold down his frill, Ernest crossed the courtyard to take Alastor's hand. "If you say so."

"I do!"

"I guess I don't have much basis for comparison. It's not like I go dancing anywhere but with you." And by himself; he'd gotten another job, and he'd found himself occasionally kicking his feet in rhythm to the buzzing and humming of the larger woodworking machines as he worked, automatically practicing his footwork. "And you're a _lot_ better than me."

"I wouldn't be a very useful teacher if I wasn't, would I?" Alastor pulled Ernest in—apparently he was starting off leading this time—summoned up a swing song out of thin air, and without a word of warning, jerked Ernest into a dance. Ernest almost stumbled over his feet, but quickly caught up.

"You see?" Alastor said during a lull between songs. "You could be more graceful, but you've got all the basics down!"

"Are you sure about that?" Ernest was pretty sure that half the dance had been getting pulled around by Alastor and letting his feet land where it made the most sense to let them land without tripping over Alastor's feet. Maybe that _was_ what dancing was. Maybe knowing the steps was just being able to make split-second decisions on how not to trip over each other.

"Would I have said I was sure if I wasn't? Why, a few weeks ago you couldn't have gone eight counts without tripping all over me!"

"I guess—"

The next song started; Alastor immediately pulled Ernest into the next dance. "Come on." He lifted a hand off of Ernest's waist and into the air, spinning a finger, shadows circling around them both as he did. "Let me show you how it's going to feel once you get _really_ good at this."

"'Feel'?" Before Ernest could get an answer, he suddenly realized that he wasn't quite touching the ground anymore; there was a layer underneath his feet that made him slide around, like trying to walk on ice in flat-soled shoes. He almost immediately started to flail.

But instead of falling, Alastor pulled him across the courtyard and he _glided_ —floating just over the ground with whatever shadowy surface he was standing on tugging his feet underneath him to get him into the right position. He didn't even have to lift his feet.

"You see?" Alastor asked. "A little more practice, and this is what you _could_ be. You're really not that far away. These are all steps you've done before..." He trailed off as they got into the dance.

And they glided effortlessly across the floor, the dark stars and Heaven's light glittering overhead, the music mingling with the rushing wind.

In Hell, where a good portion of the population could freely use various forms of magic and almost all of it was geared toward making things as unpleasant as possible for everyone else, the word "magical" lost most of the meaning it had in the mortal world. It was a hollow, utilitarian word to describe a source of power, no different from "physical," "electrical," or "mechanical." Since Ernest's death, this was the first time he'd ever experienced something that honestly, truly felt magical.

Alastor hardly had any critique to offer this time; at one point he tightened his grip on Ernest's waist, murmuring, "Be more flexible, relax, you should be bending your back more," but otherwise he was silent except for his music. His eyes even drifted shut as they swung around the courtyard.

He wordlessly switched their positions between songs, putting Ernest in the lead—not that Ernest was really leading much of anything, with Alastor's shadowy magic still helping to guide Ernest's movements.

Ernest had never noticed it before—the glow of Alastor's eyes probably obscured it—but he looked so tired. It wasn't that he seemed tired at the _moment_ , but it was etched into the lines of his face, sunken into the bags beneath his eyes. A tiredness that had lasted years. That wasn't uncommon in Hell—but it wasn't universal, either.

And there was no such thing as a generic exhaustion. There was always something personal behind it.

Alastor always seemed untouched by the inconveniences and emotions that weighed on everyone else's minds. What was weighing on the Radio Demon, of all people, so heavily?

Ernest had no clue. He still didn't know a thing about Alastor's life except his first name and his tastes in music.

Ernest wasn't sure how many songs deep they were when Alastor switched to a slow instrumental song. He might not have noticed the change in genre if it wasn't for the fact that Alastor changed their positions again—moving slowly, but still it seemed so sudden that Ernest almost flinched—so that Alastor could lean his upper body against Ernest's, resting his head on Ernest's shoulder. Just like any other couple swaying together in a slow dance.

Was that what they were now?

 _Could_ they be like any other couple? Did Ernest think that was possible? With the Radio Demon? No.

But with _Alastor?_ Maybe.

He thought he'd like that.

The hand that should have been in Ernest's hand had slid around to his back, running up his spine so Alastor's fingertips could trace along the edge of Ernest's frill where it dangled down his back.

Was that possible? Were they going to get past the weird radio host posturing—that _was_ what it was, wasn't it, _posturing_ , a big performance—and get to the point where they could have more genuine moments like this? Moments where Alastor could just shut his tired eyes and lean on someone else for a little bit? Ernest pulled Alastor a little closer, sliding his arms around him, holding their bodies together: chest to chest, abdomen to abdomen, thighs to thighs—

Alastor shoved Ernest away.

Ernest stumbled, lost his footing, and landed on his ass. "What—?"

"You— _That_ —" Alastor's smile did nothing to conceal the rage blazing across his face.

And then the rage vanished and was replaced by terror, the heavenly moon glinting in his wide eyes. His gaze jerked away from Ernest to search the faraway horizon for something—and then back to Ernest again. Alastor forced his smile wider again. He suppressed the fear.

"Alastor, what's—"

"So sorry to cut this short," Alastor said, voice loud, not like he was shouting but simply like he'd turned up the volume. "Just remembered a prior engagement, afraid I can't keep them waiting!"

Ernest hadn't been offered help to his feet, so he slowly pushed himself back up. "It's the middle of the ni—"

Alastor had already turned away from Ernest and was striding toward the roof door. "And the kind of people who insist on having a meeting in the middle of the night are _certainly_ not the sort of people you'd like to keep waiting, are they!" Cue the studio audience laughter; it sounded more artificial than usual. "Terribly sorry about this—have a drink downstairs, my expense, just drop my name, they'll put it on my tab, they know me—I'll see you, oh—shall we say in three nights? By that empty library that caught fire, lovely windows on the third floor—"

If there was going to be a proper farewell, it was lost when the door crashed shut behind Alastor.

What the fuck.

Ernest hurried to the door, pulled it open, and was met with silence. Alastor had seemingly vanished in the stairwell.

Per Alastor's instructions, Ernest trudged downstairs, sat on a bar seat with a red cushion so velvety soft it could have been carefully skinned off of the backs of still-living baby imps, and ordered a drink on Alastor's tab.

The hornet-like barkeeper scoffed at the word "tab," but made the drink anyway. (Ernest had ordered, specifically, "something with absinthe," because he'd never tried it before and thought if he was ever going to, it should be in a place like this.) As Ernest watched in baffled fascination, the bartender poured a tiny amount of booze into a glass, balanced a fork across the rim of the glass, put a sugar cube on the fork, and set the whole thing beneath an elaborate jug with a tiny faucet on the side that dripped water down on the sugar cube. Although he wasn't too happy to see his drink getting literally watered down before his eyes, this was the exact sort of inscrutable, elaborate preparation Ernest expected out of absinthe, so he decided it was a wash. He wondered if it actually caused hallucinations, too.

While waiting for—Ernest wasn't sure what, maybe the cube to fully dissolve?—the bartender leaned on the counter and said, "I take it he didn't share the bottle he grabbed on the way out?"

Ernest was briefly pleased he'd asked for the same drink Alastor had chosen. "Nope. I didn't even know he'd stopped for a drink." He paused. "Sorry, did you say ' _bottle_ '?"

The bartender nodded, grimacing. "He drank it _straight_."

From the tone of disapproval, Ernest took it that you weren't supposed to do that with absinthe. He tried to put on a properly scandalized look.

"And the shit we use here is the _good_ stuff," the bartender went on, tapping the bottle. "180 proof, ninety percent pure alcohol. They don't even make it that high in the mortal world."

This time Ernest's scandalized look was genuine. He was suddenly grateful for the water steadily dripping into his glass.

"And he chugged it back like it was a strawberry soda pop."

That was terrifying. And also, somehow, bizarrely, not surprising. It was slowly beginning to dawn on Ernest that Alastor drank a whole fucking lot. Every time they met, didn't he? Their second date, he'd downed half a bottle of bourbon—no, hell, he'd shown up with one bottle already empty before he drank that half, hadn't he?

Belatedly, Ernest identified the scent he'd smelled clinging to Alastor as they'd climbed the stairs to the roof: red wine. And now, on top of that, a bottle of 180 proof absinthe?

The bartender took Ernest's fancy drink out from under the fancy water faucet and set it in front of him.

Ernest nodded in thanks, sipped it, and suppressed a grimace until the bartender turned away. Ew, licorice. He couldn't begin to imagine chugging this like soda.

What was going on with Alastor?

###

In three nights, Ernest showed up in front of the burned-out library a little before seven p.m. He waited for a bit out front, went inside up to the third floor—they _were_ lovely windows—went back down, and stood out front again. He worried that he'd shown up too early.

He waited.

He went back in, checking out each floor one by one. He almost fell through crumbling floorboards on the second floor. He went back outside.

A few hours passed.

He went back in, and back out. He worried that he'd shown up too late.

Alastor never appeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference notes! Haven't needed to put any of these for a while.
> 
> How Ernest gets absinthe is indeed the traditional way it's served—[short video here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAPj6CX4h5U) and [article here](https://www.thrillist.com/spirits/absinthe/how-to-drink-absinthe). The highest-proof absinthe I was able to find record of is 89.9% alcohol, so technically 90% _does_ slightly edge it out. Legend has it that absinthe causes hallucinations but no, it doesn't.
> 
> For the record, chugging a full bottle of 90% _anything_ alcoholic is a good way to, like... immediately die. Like literally die. Alastor's already dead, do not emulate him.
> 
> Post for this chapter on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623656825009668096/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-47). Comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)!


	5. Chapter 5

"Yes! I'm worried about him! Why wouldn't I be worried about him?" Ernest's pacing took him on a path from the living room, through the kitchenette, to the front door, and back.

Poppy slouched in her bean bag chair, head turning slightly to watch his path back and forth. "Because he's the _Radio Demon?_ "

"And I'm the Cabinetry Demon! That's a job description, not an answer."

"Fucking..." Poppy flopped her head back, shut her eyes, and sighed, "Okay, then because he's one of the most dangerous demons in existence?"

" _One of_. Not the _only_ dangerous demon. There's a few more that are getting as strong as him! What about what's-his-name with the TV face, he's been getting big the last few years. Vicks?"

"That's the VapoRub company."

"Whatever. Alastor could've gotten beaten up in some sort of turf thing. Or—I don't know! I don't think something _physically_ happened to him, I think—I think his head's in a weird place. He was _weird_ when he left. I—I don't know."

Poppy watched Ernest pace another round, and then extended her arms so she could push herself upright. "Hold on. You're—I said hold on. Stop pacing. I have a question," she said. "How serious is this?"

"I am _seriously worried about him_ , if that's what you mean!"

" _No_ , I mean... Remember when you were fucking Squash and then he fell off the face of the planet for like a month? And you were just pissed he hadn't given your bike back?"

Ernest shrugged grudgingly. "I got it back from him later."

"Forget the bike. You and Alastor aren't even fucking and you're this worried. Are—I mean—it was _sorta_ serious between you and Alastor already, but are you _serious_ -serious about him now?"

Ernest stood there, arms crossed tight across across his chest, a bitter taste in his mouth, trying to decide where he fell between "I don't know" and "yes." Answering "no" wasn't even a possibility.

At Ernest's silence, Poppy hissed disapprovingly between her teeth; and then reluctantly rolled out of her bean bag and upright. "Okay. Fuck. Fine. If he's your _boyfriend_ now, then I guess I'm obligated to give a shit about him, too."

The word "boyfriend" sent prickles down Ernest's back and made his frill half-flare.

"If he's stalking you, then turnabout's fair play, right?" Poppy planted her hands on her hips. "So where's he hang out?"

###

Ernest didn't know where he hung out.

He knew that Alastor cooked. He knew that Alastor liked extra spice in his cooking. He knew that Alastor drank too much. He knew that Alastor steered conversations the way he wanted them to go by not giving his conversational partner an opportunity to speak until Alastor had talked to the point where the only reply his partner could give was the one Alastor wanted to hear. He knew that Alastor liked to dance and really, really wanted Ernest to like dancing too. He knew that Alastor filled the brief lulls he permitted in conversations with humming and hints of music. He knew that Alastor was familiar with every silent, abandoned, lonely space in the Pentagram.

But he didn't know how Alastor had died, nor anyone he considered a friend, nor whether he had a day job, nor what part of the city he lived in—if he lived in the city at all. He didn't know any of Alastor's hopes and dreams. He didn't know whether Alastor was one of those damned souls who had given up on having hopes entirely, simply because, in Hell, giving up was so much easier than disappointment.

More pertinently, he didn't know anything that would help him track down Alastor.

Ernest and Poppy asked around at the bar until they found someone Husk had given his number to, scrounged together some change for the payphone, and woke Husk out of a dead sleep; only to be grumpily told that he hadn't seen Alastor in days, didn't have a fucking clue where he lived, didn't know how to contact him, and didn't _want_ to know how to contact him.

Ernest grabbed the last week's issues of _The Pentagram Daily_ , one of the bigger local papers and the one that ran "Today I Saw The Radio Demon..." letters near the editorials: reader submissions that nominally helped the public keep track of one of Pentagram City's most dangerously unpredictable residents but in practice mainly served to document the absolutely baffling things citizens had caught him doing—things like "Today I saw the Radio Demon cooking himself breakfast in my kitchen, and he told me to go back to sleep," which for years Ernest had assumed was just somebody's weird dream. (Ernest wouldn't be surprised if there had been a recent letter reading "Today I saw the Radio Demon come into a gay bar, mess up some guy's card trick, drag out another guy after like one minute of conversation, and never come back again.") But aside from a single entry a day before their last date ("Today I saw the Radio Demon browsing an antique shop. He was complaining about the prices on bric-a-brac and setting the time on all the clocks. He shoplifted a belt.") the paper hadn't published any new letters this past week.

Ernest was nearly desperate enough to start visiting the places where Alastor had dragged him out on dates to see if, during the daytime, Alastor slept in the rafters of warehouses like a pigeon. But then he remembered something Alastor had said just before vanishing on their last date: "They'll put it on my tab, they know me—"

Of course they knew him. The way Alastor drank, Ernest wouldn't be surprised if he was known by half the barkeepers in Pentagram City. Maybe one of them would have a lead on Alastor. Every few dates or so, Alastor would take Ernest to a bar for a couple of drinks before moving on; so Ernest tried to remember which ones they'd visited and worked his way through them one by one.

The bartender with the absinthe hadn't seen or heard anything concerning Alastor since their last truncated date. Nor did the next few; most of them didn't know Alastor personally and wouldn't remember ever having seen him pass through the bar at all if it weren't for the fact that he was the goddamn Radio Demon.

Ernest finally had some luck at a bar that felt like the world's most poorly concealed speakeasy—the place Alastor had taken Ernest to as an apology for accidentally running him off after their second date. Unsurprising that this was the place Alastor would be recognized. Most of the time Alastor stood out like a radio tower covered in red banners in the middle of a trailer park. This bar was one of the few places where Alastor had seemed to harmonize with his setting.

The moment Ernest walked in the door, a voice called out, "Oh, hey! I remember you! Get over here." The bartender was a blonde with hot pink makeup and an exaggerated parody of a flapper's dress, and she was pouring out a drink for Ernest before he'd even found a seat. "It's Ernie, right?"

"Ernest," he said.

"Mimzy."

Ernest perked up, studying her face more closely and trying to imagine what she had looked like in life. "Like the—the movie—?"

"Oh, shh. I'll get you an autograph later. Any friend of Alastor's gets special treatment." She winked at him and slid over the drink. "He isn't coming by, is he?" She glanced at the door.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you about him," Ernest said. "I haven't seen him in a while and I don't know why. He, uh..." Suddenly aware of the fact that he wasn't in one of his usual gay bars, he said more quietly, "He bailed on a date. I've been looking for _days_ for someone who's seen him more recently, and nobody has. Have you seen him?"

Mimzy's mood immediately soured, her wide smile twisting into a dark frown that certainly wouldn't have made it into the final cuts of any of her movies. "Oh."

Yeesh. Ernest leaned back, picking up his drink. He wondered if he'd just inadvertently soured one of Alastor's friendships, and then decided that if he had, Alastor was probably better off with the loss. He hoped Alastor would see it that way. "What," he muttered, "should I have left out the 'date' part?"

Mimzy burst out laughing. "No, no! You're fine, doll. I had you two figured out the moment you walked in the door. The looks you give him aren't exactly _subtle_ , you know."

"Ah." Ernest rubbed the back of his neck, trying to keep down his frill before it fluffed out in embarrassment.

"That thing's not very subtle, either," she teased; and then her expression drooped again. "Naaah, it's just... Yeah, I've got a good idea where he is." She rolled her eyes with a huff. "Probably passed out in a dumpster somewhere."

Ernest blinked, then laughed awkwardly, then said, "Sorry, uh—a _dumpster?_ "

Mimzy shrugged. "Yeah, well, you find a corpse, what do you do with it, huh? You toss it in the trash."

"I'm sorry, is he—is he _dead?_ " Ernest asked, then amended himself: "More dead than he already was?" He suddenly remembered Alastor's claim that he'd skipped dying and simply walked through a portal into Hell.

Rather than directly answer, Mimzy said, "Alastor's been... doing _badly_ for a few years. It's gotten worse since he threw his lot in with that drunkard of a cat—"

"Husk?"

"So you've _met_." Mimzy tisked in disapproval. "It didn't start with Husk, though. Honestly, if I was any sort of responsible friend, I'd permanently cut Alastor off until he pulls himself together, but then I'd probably never see him, so..." She shrugged helplessly. "I just... I don't get it. He's always been a hard drinker, but not like _this_. It's not the—You know how some people can cope with being in Hell a few years by acting normal, like they just moved to a new city rather than dying, and then suddenly it's just too much and they crack all at once? It's like that—except I don't think it's being in Hell that cracked him. I don't know what it was. It _worries_ me, I—" Mimzy cut off as her voice cracked.

All Ernest could do was stare at her with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his untouched drink in his hands. He hadn't known Alastor before he changed—hadn't known he _had_ changed—and couldn't offer her any guess for why. All he'd ever known was the Alastor who could chug a bottle and a half of bourbon in one date without so much as swaying on his feet. The Alastor who missed dates because, apparently, he went on week-long benders. He had nothing to say to one of Alastor's _friends_. Somebody who actually _knew_ him.

After a moment, Mimzy collected herself. "It's funny, though. I actually thought he'd been doing better lately." She smiled wryly. "He's seemed more... purposeful since he brought you by. Like he's finally got his life figured out again. I thought you might've been a good influence on him."

Ernest started. "Really? Has he, uh—has he said—I mean—has he talked about...?"

Mimzy shook her head. "He plays that kind of stuff close to the chest," she said. "But... the next time he surfaces, look out for him, okay? There aren't a whole lotta people who care about the Radio Demon, but I'm one of them—and I'd like to think you're another."

Ernest nodded.

He wondered if he could ask Mimzy what Alastor had been like before.

###

For the past few days, Ernest had been hanging out at the gay bar nightly, nursing a single drink and a flat, soggy burger, watching the door, waiting. This was where they'd reconnected the last time they'd been separated without planning the next date; if he was ever going to make contact with Alastor again, it was going to be here.

But he never saw Alastor come through the door.

Which was why he flinched hard enough to spill his drink when a pair of hands squeezed his shoulders. "What—!"

Claw tips pricked his pinned-down frill and Alastor leaned over one of Ernest's shoulders, beaming. "Say! Have you ever gotten a tailored suit before?"

"I—" Ernest had about thirty questions. The one that managed to get out was, " _What?_ "

"Come on!" Alastor shoved Ernest's burger into his hand, squeezed one arm around his shoulders, and tugged him off his stool. "We're going to get you one. Every time I see you, you're half naked." Yeah, well, there weren't many shirts with collars wide enough to pull on around his frill, and button-ups irritated his frill's underside. Alastor pointedly looked Ernest up and down, and said, "At least you're wearing an undershirt today."

"Wh— _tank top_."

"It's an undershirt, darling."

Ernest stumbled as Alastor started tugging him to the door, before he caught up and walked on his own. "Where were—"

"By the way, so sorry for vanishing on you for so long. But this is a _truly_ stunning display of devotion you've put on." Alastor prodded the middle of Ernest's chest. "Just _waiting_ here for me to come back—like a puppy! Can't tell you how flattered I am."

Ernest hoped Alastor was a dog person.

He almost tried again to ask where Alastor had been. But just before they left the bar, Alastor raised his free hand and waved it toward the racks of bottles, and something shadowy curled around a bottle of whiskey and tossed it into Alastor's hand. The question died in Ernest's throat.

"I know you're not a fan of _constrictive_ clothes—" Alastor pointedly bumped his hip against Ernest's, and Ernest worried about whether he'd remembered to wear underwear today, "—but don't you worry, we'll get you something loose enough for you to dance in."

"You still want to dance?" Ernest asked, surprised. "After last time, I thought, uh—well—I wasn't sure."

For a moment, Alastor didn't say anything. His smile looked frozen in place. Then he said, "No no, you were—It was, uh... nice."

Ernest felt his heart flutter.

Alastor twisted the cap off the whiskey bottle with his teeth, spit it on the ground, and took a deep swig.

###

"Don't worry about the bottom half," Alastor said, adjusting the suit jacket's fit on Ernest's shoulders, "that's optional."

Ernest blinked. "Pants?" he said. "Pants are optional?" Pants were, in fact, the sole and exclusive item of clothing he did _not_ consider optional.

"Just mix and match until you find a top half and a bottom half that look nice together. That's what _I'm_ doing," Alastor said. Apparently dissatisfied with the current jacket, he tugged it off Ernest's shoulders, tossed it to the floor with the dozen others they'd already piled up, and thrust another into his hands to try on. "What I'm most concerned about is getting you a jacket that highlights your best assets!"

Ernest knew that Alastor meant Ernest's frill even before Alastor reached out to run a claw along one of its supporting spines. Ernest suppressed a shiver. All of Ernest's prior boyfriends and hookups had seen his inhuman additions as features to ignore or get used to in order to get access to the human person underneath; none of them had been _into_ them the way Alastor so clearly was. When Alastor tugged down Ernest's cuffs to sit at the right place on his wrists, two of Alastor's gloved fingertips dragged down the back of one of Ernest's hand and along the length of a finger to the claw tip. The scaled skin on the back of Ernest's hand tingled long after Alastor's touch had left.

Alastor smoothed Ernest's frill down over the back collar of his jacket—lingering with his arms around Ernest's shoulders just a bit longer than necessary, Ernest thought—and then Alastor stepped back and grabbed his upper arms. "There!" He spun him toward the closed suit shop's nearest mirror. "What do you think?"

Ernest considered the view for a moment. It wasn't comfortable—nothing ever fit comfortably around his neck—but that wasn't what Alastor was asking. "I don't think my color is, uh—plaid."

Alastor blinked hard and leaned back, studying Ernest as though he'd only just realized his jacket was plaid. "Doesn't really compliment scales, does it?" he admitted. "Well, what's important is the cut! The _silhouette_ of a suit. Don't worry about the color."

"Really?" Ernest asked dubiously. "Isn't picking a color you look good in a whole... thing?"

Alastor shrugged, grabbing his bottle of whiskey off a shelf of collared shirts. "There's dye."

Ernest watched wearily as Alastor tipped back the bottle and chugged.

They'd talked about nothing but suit fitting for the last fifteen minutes. Ernest could not think of any topic that mattered to him less. He could not imagine that the topic honestly mattered to Alastor, either. The deep bags under Alastor's eyes certainly weren't there because he was losing sleep over suits. Ernest wondered how bloodshot Alastor's eyes would be if they weren't already red.

How could Ernest ask Alastor about the things that were clearly weighing on him without the conversation getting redirected away from Alastor and back to Ernest—or back to suit fitting—or worse, back to _dancing_ , that constant silent activity that filled up most of the time between them. Dancing had always _felt_ so intimate; but looking at Alastor's face and not knowing a thing about what was happening behind it, it dawned on Ernest that putting their hands on each other's hands and hips and shoulders didn't teach either of them anything about each other. For weeks, Ernest had looked forward to that physical touch—had looked forward to even _closer_ physical touch—but, hell, Alastor could strip naked right here in the suit shop, and Ernest still wouldn't have any better idea what was really going on behind his tired, smiling face.

Ernest dragged his gaze away from Alastor and back to his own face.

Alastor lowered the bottle and gave Ernest another considering look in the mirror. "Hm. It works, but it could have broader shoulder pads." He tugged Ernest's jacket off and tossed it on a stool, and then headed for the last rack of clothes they'd been looking at. "But that one's a strong contender! We'll call it a keeper if we don't find a better one, what do you think?" He brought the bottle back up to his lips as he walked.

What did Ernest think? That plaid wasn't his color. And that he didn't know enough about suits to tell if you could re-dye them after they were sewn, but that didn't quite sound right. "You're... chugging that pretty fast." It would honestly have been impressive if it wasn't so alarming.

Alastor immediately jerked forward, righted the bottle, swallowed hard, and quickly wiped his mouth. The noise he made clearing his throat was the same sound an AM radio station made during a storm when lightning flashed nearby. "So sorry." He spun back around to face Ernest again. His smile never wavered. "You're very right, I have company! I should slow it down. I'm—not used to drinking with the intent to socialize."

"Ah," Ernest said, not quite sure what that meant. "So, you usually drink with the intent to...?"

Breezily, Alastor said, "Oh, not do much of anything, really. Just go to bed right after. That's the thing, you don't need to be too careful about making sure you don't overdo it if you don't have any plans. I haven't had much in the way of a night life since I've died—most people drink in preparation for going out; I got used to doing it once I was _finished_ going out. Winding down instead of winding up! So, having a drink with a..." He gestured with the bottle toward Ernest, as though he was trying to figure out what to call him, "with a _guest_ —I'm out of practice."

He said it so cheerily, so blithely, and with such an effusive outpouring of unnecessary chatter that it took Ernest a moment to stop nodding along in agreement (yes, of course, naturally, drinking when planning to go to bed was very different from drinking when planning to go socialize) and translate what Alastor was actually saying. "Ssso," Ernest said slowly, putting what he knew about Alastor's drinking habits together with what Alastor had just revealed about his motives, "you... drink to pass out?"

Alastor froze, staring at Ernest with wide eyes. With Alastor's rictus smile fixed in place, Ernest couldn't tell if the wide-eyed look was shock, shame, or fury.

Ernest froze too, not sure if he'd accidentally said something that was going to get his head separated from his shoulders—damn his stupid neck frill, flaring out right now.

The corner of Alastor's mouth twitched. He closed the distance between them and reached toward Ernest's face; Ernest flinched, this was it, Poppy was going to have to retrieve his head and limbs from different dumpsters in each point of the Pentagram; and then Alastor's fingertips rested lightly on Ernest's frill instead, the sharp tips of his nails dragging lightly over the scales from his throat out. It was the most tender touch the Radio Demon had favored Ernest with so far. He held as still as if a hornet had landed on his naked arm.

"Oh, I suppose if you _insist_ , you _could_ put it that way," Alastor said lightly, and prattled on before Ernest could recall what Alastor was replying to: "If you want to make it sound like a _problem_ instead of a harmless character quirk, at any rate."

That sounded to Ernest like a tacit admission that it was, in fact, a problem. Ernest hadn't lost his head yet—and with the tip of Alastor's pointer finger dragging lightly along the edge of Ernest's frill, sending shivers down his spine, he didn't think he was at risk of it now. As his frill slowly draped down over his shoulders again, he asked, "Why?"

Alastor jerked his hand back and turned away from Ernest, his gaze flicking through the empty store as if he was trying to find an acceptable-sounding answer in the shadows between racks of clothes. For a moment, nothing but dead air hissed around them. Ernest leaned away from Alastor, not scooting away but giving him a little more space.

Then Alastor strode across the room again, like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been pulled upright, back to the row of clothes he'd been heading for a moment before. "Now, here's some interesting trivia for you!" he said, with a sound effect something like the music that played as a flashy carnival game turned on. "Did you know that if you drink enough to kill a man, you can sleep for over a week?!"

Ernest gaped at Alastor, trying to wrap his head around that confession.

"About ten days, if the drinks are hard enough," Alastor said, bright and chipper as always, flipping through jackets with his free hand. "If you get your drinks down fast enough and none of them come back up, you can go thirteen days! It's essentially the same thing as being dead for a couple of weeks," he laughed, "except that we're _already_ dead, aren't we? So it doesn't stick! It's no more fatal than getting cut in half! That's simply the amount of time it takes to work all that brain damage out of your system."

Ernest was vaguely conscious of the fact that at this point his mouth was stupidly flapping open and closed like a fish. He shut it.

"It's a _remarkable_ trick," Alastor said, turned away from Ernest, gesturing enthusiastically. The nearly-empty whiskey bottle sloshed in his grip. "Absolutely astounding, how you can... can... jump over a week into the future! Like time travel! It's so, so..." He snapped his free hand, looking for a word. "So— _efficient_." He pulled a blue jacket off the rack and examined it.

" _Efficient?_ " Ernest echoed in disbelief, one hand raised to his head. "What's—what's efficient about that?!"

The jacket apparently didn't meet Alastor's standards; he put it back. "Why, what about it _isn't_ efficient? You can just—check the week off on your to-do list! Strike a whole week from the calendar," he made a violent gesture that more resembled slashing a knife across a neck, "all in one go. One more week banished into the past! One week down, and—infinity more to go." His voice faltered a moment, his arms drooping. "It's... it's still infinity. It's always going to be infinity."

Silence churned around Alastor, like he was mentally stirring through the air, searching for more words to fill the room.

Ernest uncurled his fingers from where he'd clutched them in his tank top over the ache that had sprung up in his chest. He slowly crossed the room, carefully crept between the racks of clothes, like he was boxing in a timid wild animal and didn't want to spook it, and edged up to Alastor to look at him from the side.

Alastor turned his head away. All Ernest saw was a sliver of his cheek.

"Hey," Ernest said. "Are... you okay?"

Alastor froze for a second. Then he whirled to face Ernest, smiling so merrily it almost looked maniacal. "It's _fine_. It's fine, _I'm_ fine. Never better! You know what they say— _what doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger_ , right?!" Alastor laughed loudly, clapping a hand on Ernest's shoulder. "And _boy_ , let me tell you, have I ever been doing a lot of not being killed lately!"

Ernest forcibly shut up the little voice in his head trying to remind him that the Radio Demon was not the kind of person he wanted to provoke. "Or, what doesn't kill you leaves you with some pretty fucked up scars—"

Alastor's grip on Ernest's shoulder tightened. "But it's a good thing that doesn't happen in Hell!" he said loudly. "I feel _great!_ Physically, mentally, emotionally—" He raised his other arm to jokingly flex his (non-existent) bicep—and in the process, accidentally poured half the remaining contents of his bottle over his own shoulder and back. He started, stumbled a step forward, and flung the whiskey bottle on the floor. " _Damn_ —"

Ernest automatically reached forward to put a hand on Alastor's shoulder, steadying him. Alastor flinched.

Ernest said, "Hey," and then he didn't know where to go with that.

The edges of Alastor's smile seemed too sharp, his lips pressed hard together, his eyes darting around to avoid making contact with Ernest's. So often, when Ernest looked at Alastor, he looked like a machine—a strangely fluid animatronic, a self-propelled puppet, with eyes designed to turn back and forth, eyelids that snapped down and up, jaw built to open and shut, a smile permanently carved on his face. Now, the automaton seemed to be coming apart, unkempt, some joints worn away and too loose, some rusted stiff and inflexible. When Alastor had steadied himself and dragged his eyes away from the spill on the ground to make eye contact, Ernest thought he could see, for the first time, the ghost in the machine, the source of the voice buzzing through the radio's speaker, the shadow flitting through the hollow body.

And the ghost in the machine looked completely wasted.

Wasted, and confused, and not quite totally on this plane of reality, and incredibly startled to find someone else trying to support him, and very, very _lost_.

For all his fancy magic and intimidatingly rapid-fire chatter and aggressive displays of self-confidence, the Radio Demon was, in fact, just a human. He'd been born a human and he'd died a human—and no matter how the shape of his soul had gotten twisted up when he fell, just like all the other beasts and machines down here, he was _still_ a human. A human who had to drink himself to sleep, and who had to tag along with a cat to a gay bar just to make himself look approachable enough to ask the least popular lizard in the bar to dance with him.

God, weren't they _all_ lonely down here?

Slowly, eyes sliding shut, Ernest leaned in toward Alastor's face.

His lips met the palm of Alastor's glove.

"Oh, dear me!" Alastor laughed ruefully. Ernest's eyes flew open. He was greeted with a smirk that was one half pitying and one half condescending. "I'm afraid you've _wildly_ misread the atmosphere, my friend."

Mouth still pressed to Alastor's hand, Ernest said, "Mm."

Alastor shoved Ernest's face back just enough to knock him off balance, and then caught him again with an arm around his shoulders. "But don't be hard on yourself for it—you're far from the first," Alastor said. "I've just got one of those faces, I suppose. This is why I went into radio rather than theater!" Alastor sighed dramatically, hauling Ernest toward the door as his studio audience laughed.

As he went, he scooped up the plaid jacket they'd discarded on a stool and, almost as an afterthought, leaned over to scoop an opera hat off a shelf—dangling off Ernest's shoulder as he did and forcing Ernest to stagger sideways to avoid falling over. He flattened the hat and tucked both it and the jacket under his arm. "And I had quite the talent for theater, I'll have you know!" He adjusted his monocle and cleared his throat with a sound like searching through several stations and his tone changed, somehow telegraphing irritation despite his smile never wavering: "'I am sick to _death_ of cleverness. _Everybody_ is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance! I wish to _goodness_ we had a few fools left!'"

Ernest's heart leaped into his throat—he _knew_ that play, he knew it backwards and forwards—and he automatically supplied the next line: "'We do.'"

Alastor turned a look of exaggerated faux interest on Ernest. "'I should extremely like to meet them! What _do_ they talk about?'"

"'The, uh—They talk about the clever people, mostly.'"

"'What fools!'" Alastor kicked out the glass of the front door, laughing.

Ernest squeezed his eyes shut just in time to protect them from the glass shards, and chuckled a little less maniacally than Alastor. "You know _The Importance of Being Earnest_?"

Alastor smiled sweetly. "You know—I thought you might be a fan of that one."

Ernest could have tried to kiss Alastor again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember when I said last chapter that a whole bottle of 180 proof absinthe will kill you? I was _so_ not exaggerating.
> 
> Only one note this chapter, I think: Alastor is indeed quoting from _The Importance of Being Earnest_ by Oscar Wilde, and doing a better job of quoting from it than Ernest does.
> 
> Post for this chapter available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623755317399945216/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-57). Comments/reblogs there are very welcome (as are comments here)!


	6. Chapter 6

"Very nice." Alastor's voice was nearly a whisper in Ernest's ear as they finished their last dance of the night.

He hadn't needed to say that; Ernest could tell for himself how much better his dancing had gotten over the last few weeks, to the point that a couple of times tonight he'd been able to take Alastor by surprise, dragging him into a different dance step as Alastor let out a startled laugh.

So Ernest didn't need to be told that Alastor thought he'd done nicely; but he felt like the fact that Alastor had felt the need to comment on it was some sort of breakthrough—or maybe a conclusion, a certification stating that he'd completed a class he hadn't quite voluntarily signed up for.

He didn't know what to expect next, except that he was sure it was going to be something different.

Ernest waited while Alastor packed up his picnic basket—they hadn't arranged their next date yet, after all. (For dinner tonight, Alastor had brought what Ernest thought was pork tenderloin, but it tasted just off enough that he wasn't totally sure—but that might have been due to whatever was in the spicy jelly sauce Alastor had put on it. No alcohol tonight—Ernest hadn't seen Alastor touch a drop the last few dates—but Ernest didn't think it was because Alastor had actually started drinking less. Sometimes Ernest still smelled it on his breath.)

Alastor scraped the other leftovers into the alleged pork's container: biscuits, green beans that had been drowned in enough butter that Ernest actually didn't mind that they were green beans, macaroni and cheese (Ernest's favorite food and the best he'd had since he'd died). He stuck a lid on the container, handed it to Ernest, and chucked the rest of the basket in the trash. Ernest wondered, not for the first time, where Alastor got all the baskets and dishes and cutlery he tossed out after every date.

This time, though, Alastor had kept two things: a sharp-tipped knife and a napkin. He licked the knife clean, wiped it dry on his pants, stabbed it through his glove and into the palm of his hand, and then used it like a quill dipped in ink to start writing on the napkin. Ernest stared in horror.

"Here!" Alastor held out the napkin with a flourish, and then looked at Ernest's face. "What?"

Ernest gestured lamely at the napkin. "What's wrong with pens?"

"I don't have a pen."

Well. Well, Ernest couldn't argue with that, could he. He took the napkin and squinted at the address, trying to make out the words. "I can barely read this."

"I'd like to see _you_ write on a napkin with a knife."

Ernest couldn't argue with that, either—Hold on. He was holding an _address_. Alastor never gave him addresses. It was always landmarks. The hotel, or the bar, or the burned-down hospital, or the flat stretch of empty concrete next to the highway that everyone in the city agreed was haunted even though nobody could agree on what, exactly, was physically capable of causing a haunting in a realm where everyone was already dead. You don't give an address to direct someone to, say, a restaurant. (Ernest sure didn't, anyway.) You give addresses to direct somebody to your _home_.

Ernest stared blankly at Alastor, holding up the napkin in a silent question. He held his breath as he waited for clarification.

Alastor just smiled a little wider. "And wear that jacket and hat we got you, if you don't mind. This is a bit of a more... _formal_ meeting."

Formal, what did that mean, formal? "I—haven't had a chance to dye the plaid out of the jacket."

"Oh, that doesn't make a difference! As shadowy as it's going to be, neither of us is going to see the plaid."

Alastor was inviting Ernest over to what was probably his house, and he was going to have the lights out.

Before Ernest could think up another comment or question, Alastor said, "C'mere," hooked a finger between the buttons on Ernest's shirt, and tugged him a little closer. Looking up at Ernest through his bangs with his rose red eyes, his smile crooked and almost sweet-looking, Alastor whispered, "I'd _really_ like to see you in a suit."

Ernest swallowed hard.

###

"You look like an idiot," Poppy said.

Ernest stopped trying to fiddle with his top hat and turned away from Poppy's bathroom mirror to give her an exasperated look. "Is it the plaid?"

"The plaid doesn't help."

"Yeah, well," Ernest muttered, turning back to the mirror. "If he wants to fuck me in a suit, I'm not going to argue." How was he supposed to balance this thing on his head? It was designed for a human skull, not a head that had been mutated to something halfway between human and lizard. He guessed he was lucky his snout wasn't _that_ long—he'd seen reptilian sinners with shorter ones, sure, but his was still in the bottom 50%—but it was still long enough to shift his head shape...

"But the top hat," Poppy said, "that looks _really_ stupid."

Ernest gave her a genuinely offended look. He snatched off his hat. "I _like_ the top hat," he said, holding the hat in front of his chest by the brim. "I've always wanted one."

" _Have_ you?"

"Yes! I have!"

" _Huh._ "

Ernest tried to ignore Poppy's judgmental look as he stuck his hat back on and fiddled with it some more.

Poppy asked, "Is the hat another dumb Oscar Wilde thing—"

" _No,_ " Ernest lied. "But if it _was_ , Alastor wouldn't think it was dumb. _He_ likes Oscar Wilde. He's performed in _The Importance of Being Earnest_." He paused. "Well. I don't know if he's _performed_ in it. He knows the lines, anyway—"

"Hold on, hold on, hold on. The importance of being _what?_ "

"Earnest," Ernest mumbled. "S'a play."

"Did you name yourself after an Oscar Wilde play."

"No!" Ernest lied. He turned toward Poppy and spread his arms. "How do I look?"

She opened her mouth.

"Aside from the plaid and the hat."

She shut her mouth. After a moment of contemplation, she said, "Aside from the bits that look terrible, you look great."

" _Thanks_." He rolled his eyes and left the bathroom, heading for the door.

"Pay phone change?" Poppy called after him.

"Got it."

"Condoms?"

"Don't need 'em."

"Are you or are you not getting laid tonight!"

"I've waltzed with Alastor in every single abandoned building in the Pentagram and I am ninety-seven percent sure that he's never touched another crotch before."

Poppy extended an arm to reach into a basket of condoms by the bathroom sink, grabbed a handful, and chucked them at Ernest's back. "Condoms or I'm making you wear a saran-wrap diaper to sit on the couch until you hand me a medical report that says you don't have crabs."

He scooped a few condoms off the floor, stuffed them in his back pocket, and flipped Poppy off over his shoulder. "Buddy system's canceled tonight," he said. "If I don't call you tonight, assume I fucked the Radio Demon so hard I can't walk straight."

"Got it. When do I start searching dumpsters for your body parts?"

"Uhh, pfff." Ernest doubled back to the kitchenette and pulled out his napkin to copy the address onto the grocery list on the fridge door. "Check here before you check the dumpsters. Let's go with eleven a.m.?"

"That late?"

"Maybe we're gonna do breakfast?" Ernest shrugged and headed to the door again.

"Final question," Poppy called. "Are you _sure_ this is a good idea."

Ernest had to stop at that. He was _going_ to do it, but that was a different question from whether it was a good idea.

Downsides: Alastor's frightening tendency to make all the decisions and convince Ernest they were either great ideas or else not bad enough to be worth the effort of protesting. The fact that he hadn't told Ernest a single damn thing about his own life. They'd never kissed. They almost never hung out with other people. The emotional secrecy. The shaky sense of hygiene. The alcoholism. The fact that he was the goddamn motherfucking Radio Demon.

Big, glaring red flags aside, Alastor was a catch. He asked Ernest questions about himself and remembered the answers, he was sort of sexy in an unnerving way on the dates where he'd showered, and he had a sense of humor like a machine gun. All in all, that wasn't a bad package in hell.

And on top of that—sure, it was dubious that Ernest was going to get a fuck so good that it was actually worth the risk—but by this point, what he wanted with the Radio Demon wasn't just a quick fuck. More than that, Ernest wanted to _give_ something to that lost, drunk, lonely man.

He didn't know what it _was_ he wanted to give Alastor—whatever the hell it was that Alastor was looking for in Ernest. All Ernest knew was that it involved dancing. Was dancing his kink? Did Alastor need a partner for a dance competition? Was he, in fact, not a mortal human at all, but an escapee from a Broadway musical comedy who was unable to express his emotions without a dance number?

Ernest still didn't know. But he was pretty damn sure that meeting Alastor tonight was going to be part of finding the answer. He was willing to take that risk. 

But was it a _good_ idea? Ernest shrugged jerkily. "Wish me luck!"

With deep sincerity, Poppy said, "Get fucked."

With just as deep sincerity, Ernest replied, "Thanks. I'm gonna try."

"And don't get mangled."

Ernest waved. The door shut behind him.

###

The address that Alastor had given Ernest led to a long lane of row houses, tall and narrow with their walls connected—except whatever street the row houses once faced had long ago been destroyed and replaced by a garment factory. Now only a narrow alleyway extended between the fronts of the houses and the factory next door. Overhead, the row houses' massive bay windows almost stretched far enough across the alley to brush the factory next door. A third of the homes appeared to be empty; most of the rest stank of cooking drugs or were protected with steel doors with hired hellhounds peering out the windows.

Ernest stuck close to the factory's side and kept walking. He'd gone to worse neighborhoods to get laid, and he'd only been almost kidnapped by human traffickers twice.

Alastor's house number looked like one of the abandoned houses—although someone had taken the care to securely board up the broken windows and the door was still on its hinges. It was no wonder Alastor had never invited Ernest home before. A couple months ago, Ernest never would have believed that the Radio Demon, most feared mortal in Hell, would live in a run-down row house hidden on a cramped, half-hidden alleyway when he could live just about anywhere he chose to—but knowing Alastor like he did now, knowing the way he spent his nights wandering abandoned lots and closed warehouses... Where else would the Radio Demon live but another lonely, hidden, abandoned place?

Before Ernest could knock, Alastor opened the door. "Ernie, my friend! Come on in!" A round of applause played for Ernest like he was being welcomed onto a talk show. Alastor swept an arm in, ushering Ernest through the dark doorway. "You're right on time."

The door shut behind Ernest as soon as he'd stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark; there were no lights on inside the house. The only illumination was a smattering of dim candles and Alastor's eyes and cane. Behind the candles, shadows swarmed and stirred, almost seeming to writhe in the flickering candlelight.

The house smelled funny. Old. Kinda moldy.

Alastor offered Ernest his hand. "This way." He led him up the stairs.

Ernest's dead heart pounded. He'd been promised that it was going to be dark, but he hadn't been expecting _this_ dark—or this soon. Were they skipping the small talk and the foreplay and going straight to...? He cleared his throat. "It's, uh... It's dark."

"Astute observation."

"The power out?"

"For over a decade," Alastor said. "This place has its own generator in the basement; I've never bothered to figure out how it works." He held a hand in front of his face, wiggling his fingers in the red light his eyes gave off. "No need."

The candles were probably for Ernest's benefit, then. Did Alastor just live in the dark?

There were more candles in the bedroom Alastor led Ernest to, enough to let him actually see the room. It was, to his surprise, a lavishly decorated Victorian-esque bedroom: a canopy bed with headboard and footboard made of heavy, ornately carved wood that made Ernest feel like a clumsy amateur of a woodworker; black walls with the trim and plasterwork flourishes painted gold; heavy damask curtains that matched the canopy over the bed; a massive bookcase filled with leather-bound books and journals. The cheapest-looking text in the room was a thin, stapled copy of _The Importance of Being Earnest_ on a nightstand; Ernest's stomach flipped when he realized that Alastor hadn't just _happened_ to know Ernest's favorite play—he must have picked up a copy to learn it. It was fitting that there was an Oscar Wilde on the nightstand, considering how deeply this bedroom appealed to the part of Ernest that fantasized about having a one night stand with Oscar Wilde.

It was a gorgeous bedroom. But it didn't feel like Alastor.

One of Poppy's ex-girlfriends—she'd been smarter than both Poppy and Ernest combined—had told him that Hell's prisoners fell roughly into three categories, and when he looked around, he found it was true. There were the people who drifted aimlessly between decades and centuries, the kind of people who would pull a leather motorcycle jacket on over a high-waisted, puff-sleeved Regency-era gown and style their hair like Rome had never fallen. There were the people who were carried forward by the current of time, vaguely shifting their fashion and habits and language year by year to keep up with the expectations of the constant wave of new arrivals. And then there were the people who dropped an anchor as soon as they landed in Hell and never pulled it up, stubbornly remaining rooted in the era in which they'd died.

Outside of a few people Ernest had seen who literally lived in those generation-based communes where a couple hundred people got together to roleplay that it was still the 1400s for the next five hundred years, Alastor was the most chronologically-anchored person Ernest had ever met. The only places in Hell where he didn't stand out looked like miniature generation communes, bars and burlesques locked firmly in Prohibition. He was so solidly and narrowly fixed in his time period that it was like he had manifested fully-formed at midnight on October 28, 1929, walked the streets of New York for forty-eight hours to watch stockbrokers jumping from windows, and then immediately descended straight to Hell. Everything about Alastor screamed that he was a human avatar of the death of the Roaring Twenties.

Alastor standing in a Victorian bedroom was like a Bugs Bunny sticker slapped on Da Vinci's _The Last Supper_.

The only things in this room that looked like what Ernest recognized of Alastor were several empty booze bottles scattered across the floor, and not even that many. He couldn't possibly live here.

In fact, Ernest doubted _anybody_ lived here. All the fabrics in the room—the bed's mattress, a daybed nearby, curtains, sheets, carpet—were moth-eaten, dingy, and smelly, as if everything in the room had been abandoned for years. Alastor also typically smelled somehow old and forgotten—but old and forgotten like a broken telephone stored in a cardboard box, like a stale cigarette gone cold in an ashtray. Not old and forgotten like grandma's clothes left in the washing machine for a month to mildew.

"Whose place is this?" Ernest asked, drifting toward the bookcase.

"Nobody's now," Alastor said. "Used to be one of dozens of properties held by one person. Most of them were abandoned in the mid-sixties." Hearing Alastor mention the mid-sixties was weird. It sort of felt like he shouldn't be aware that the sixties existed.

"Huh." The books in the bookcase were very sciencey—engineering, chemistry, mechanics. Lots of books that looked like biographies. "Whose was it?"

"Does it matter?" Alastor's tone sounded less like he was dismissing the topic and more like he was shoving it out the door. "I thought you might like it."

Ernest's stomach flipped again, his frill half-flaring self-consciously. "Uh—oh. I... yeah. I do."

" _There's_ what I was looking for." Alastor's hands slid onto Ernest's shoulders from behind; the edge of Ernest's frill brushed against Alastor's chest, just beneath his bow tie, as Alastor leaned forward to press his cheek to Ernest's. "Either you're getting harder to fluster, or I'm losing my edge!" Alastor ran his thumbs along the frill on both sides, and it puffed out a little further. Ernest could feel Alastor's cheek press harder against his as Alastor's grin stretched wider. "That's the danger of familiarity, I suppose."

Ernest automatically leaned back into Alastor's touch and stumbled when Alastor let go of him. Loudly, as though calling a meeting to order, Alastor said, "So!"

Right. They'd come here for a reason. "So." Ernest turned around, his back to the bookcase, facing Alastor and the room and Alastor and the bed and Alastor and his own feet, and then the bed again. "So...?" He nodded toward the bed.

Alastor turned his head to glance toward the bed, but otherwise didn't move a muscle. For a moment, the room seemed perfectly still and silent, every sound muffled by a decade of dust and the snow of radio static.

Finally, Alastor's bright gaze flicked back to Ernest. "I don't do that."

Ha, Ernest _knew_ Alastor had never fucked before! The triumph of confirmation was shortly squashed by the realization of what this revelation meant for Ernest's evening plans. "Oh," he said, while trying to figure out what else to say. "Not—not at all?"

"No. And I don't intend to start now."

"Oh." Ernest's hopes plummeted to the floor. He rocked back on his heels. He told himself it had been a long shot from the start. Bedding the _Radio Demon_ —he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up in the first place. "Okay." He could whine to Poppy about his blue balls later. Right now he was still with Alastor; and with sex off the table, he didn't know what it was that Alastor wanted to _do_ with him here. "Right, so, uh... That was the only thing I'd mentally prepared myself for. So, gimme our itinerary. I'm up for whatever it is you're planning."

Alastor blinked, head pulling back slightly, and although his smile didn't change, Ernest got the impression that he'd actually managed to surprise Alastor. "Are you?" Like he'd been expecting Ernest to protest.

Ernest shrugged. "I've been following along with everything you wanted to do up til now and it's turned out fine." But saying that was just... It wasn't an excuse, but it was a deflection. It made it sound like he'd _resigned_ himself to doing whatever it was Alastor wanted. That might have been true on the first couple of dates, but... "And I _want_ to do what you want. I, uh..." He shrugged jerkily, looking down at his feet again in self-consciousness. "I've—We haven't really... talked a lot." At the sound of Alastor's studio audience laughing, Ernest pulled a hand out of his pocket and gestured at Alastor, "Yeah, there's been a lot of _that_ —talk show stuff—but I feel like I barely know more about you now than I did when we met. But—I mean—what I _do_ know—I like you. I want to know you better. The real you. As Alastor, not the Radio Demon."

His frill probably looked like an umbrella that was threatening to turn inside out. He reached under it and tugged his shirt collar away from his neck.

Alastor, on the other hand, was staring at Ernest in absolute silence, stunned truly speechless for the first time since Ernest had met him.

After a long moment, he managed to stutter, "Is that—Well, that's certainly—Do you really?" He let out a weak laugh, almost garbled into inaudibility under static. "Huh. I... didn't even notice."

Had Ernest actually managed to fluster Alastor? "That'd be a pretty embarrassing thing to admit if I _didn't_." It had been a pretty embarrassing thing to admit and he _did_ mean it.

"Even if I'm leading the whole time?" Alastor asked skeptically, stepping closer, looking straight in Ernest's eyes. "Even if all I've done so far is take."

Well, he'd also cooked dinner a few times, but... "I—yes."

"Even if that's all I'm _going_ to do?" Alastor's breath stank of blood and whiskey.

Ernest didn't think he'd ever looked this deeply into Alastor's eyes before. He'd never noticed that, hidden in his irises beneath the brightly-glowing red, there were flecks of vivid green. Had that been his real eye color—his _human_ eye color? Ernest felt suddenly like he needed to say more, to tell Alastor more— "Anything you want from me, you can have it."

"Everything?" Alastor prompted.

"Everything."

Alastor held out his hand invitingly. "Do you promise?"

Ernest didn't notice until he took Alastor's hand that it seemed to be reflecting the bright green in his eyes. He felt like the touch pulled something out of him. He didn't know what.

Alastor's smile widened and Ernest hadn't believed that swooning was an actual thing that real people did, but he nearly did right then and there.

When Alastor broke eye contact, Ernest was suddenly disoriented, as if he'd been grabbed by the shoulders and spun around. What had he just said? He sounded like a desperate idiot—

And then he _was_ being spun around, Alastor pulling him in and twirling around across the room. Even disoriented as he was, Ernest kept up effortlessly, muscle memory ensuring he kept pace with Alastor. He didn't stumble until the backs of his legs bumped against the bed and he toppled backwards. Alastor let him go and watched him fall, biting his lip to hold back a laugh.

Ernest blinked dizzily, trying to get his head to stop spinning. The shadows where the candlelight didn't reach roiled with his head. He found his gaze fixing on the decor. For the first time, he realized that the shapes in the carved wood headboard—which he'd originally taken to be abstract spiraling curves—were actually snakes. And so were the golden plasterwork flourishes on the walls. And so were the patterns in the damask bed curtains. It was all snakes, top to bottom, back and forth. What the hell—?

Then Alastor's knee was on the bed between Ernest's legs, his hands on either side of Ernest's shoulders, and he was leaning over him, grinning wildly. Huskily, Alastor said, "I never thought this was going to be hard." He tapped a finger on the tip of Ernest's snout. "But I didn't expect it to be _this_ easy."

"What—?"

"No speaking," Alastor commanded.

Ernest's mouth sealed shut.

"That's better."

Alastor lightly trailed his nail down from Ernest's snout, over his lips, tickling the underside of his chin—then stabbed straight through Ernest's frill.

He dragged his claw from Ernest's chin to the edge of the frill, tearing a gash through the membrane, cutting it in half.

###

Eleven a.m. came and went.

Poppy had started worrying about Ernest the second he'd walked out the door the night before, and her worry had steadily increased throughout the night, like a roller coaster climbing toward a peak.

When eleven passed without a phone call, she didn't get more worried. There was no room in her for more worry. She was already at maximum vicarious terror.

Fine—she'd go get Ernest back herself. She'd waited longer than she should have already; and the longer she waited, the greater the odds that Ernest was scattered in pieces around the city.

She forced herself to wait half an hour just to make sure Ernest wasn't running late—she didn't want to unnecessarily draw the Radio Demon's attention to herself by charging across town to pound on his door, only to be told Ernest had left to find a pay phone five minutes earlier. But at exactly 11:30, she slung on her backpack and fastened the chest strap to keep it on her shoulders when her arms were pulled in. She was supplied with a crowbar, an axe, a couple of bricks that looked good for beating someone's skull in, and a switchblade that she'd been told had been made with the broken-off tip of an angel spear, but was probably a normal knife with pearly paint, considering she'd bought it for twenty bucks. But she was willing to try to bluff the Radio Demon with it. And, if that didn't work, test out its extermination abilities on his neck.

Somewhere in the mortal realm, there was a tombstone over her head that, if there was any justice in the world, ought to say something like "Died as she lived: picking a fight with some douchebag she met at the club." When this day was over, she was going to claw her way out of Hell to carve an addendum into the tombstone herself: "Afterlived as she died: picking yet another fight with yet another God damned douchebag."

Poppy was naturally stealthy. She was covered in dull gray scales that seemed to blend into concrete and red spots that blended in with everything else, and slithering was near silent. Nobody glanced at her on the journey across town to the address Ernest had left her; she slid by the houses neighboring the Radio Demon's without the hellhounds standing guard inside so much as giving her a passing glance. The Radio Demon had probably been up all night, and Ernest said Alastor was a complete slosh, so the odds were he'd be passed out now and wouldn't have any reason to suspect someone sneaking in.

The Radio Demon's narrow house was built into the two on either side of it; she'd hoped to slip behind the house and come up on it from behind, but no alley for that. Maybe if she broke into one of the nearby houses that looked abandoned, she could get out a back door and cross the backyards to get back to the correct one?

There was an abandoned-looking house two doors past the Radio Demon's. She slithered forward, dropping to keep the entire length of her tail against the ground and her torso inches from the ground to remain beneath the house's front windows, boarded up though they were.

As she slithered silently in front of the door, it opened.

Poppy stared in horror up at the Radio Demon, who was grinning down at her with long yellow fangs, eyes gleaming malevolently. For a split second, she was torn between taking off as fast as she could and swinging her entire backpack off her shoulders to try to knock his legs out from under him—

—when the Radio Demon said, tone almost conspiratorial, "You know, I was _hoping_ you might come over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's important to me that you all know that during the knife-blood-napkin-writing scene I really really wanted Ernest to joke that Alastor has "serial killer handwriting" for Alastor to say in surprise "You can tell that from handwriting??" but I couldn't find any sources indicating that people jokingly used the phrase serial killer handwriting to describe bad handwriting as early as the 70s, so I tragically had to leave it out.
> 
> Mark my words, before this fic is over I'm gonna make terribly-photoshopped reference images for Ernest and Poppy and you're all going to hate me for making you think of them while you read. Anyway we're in the home stretch! One more chapter to go! All those unused tags that have been looming over this fic are about to pay off!
> 
> Post for this chapter available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623843785378594816/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-67). Comments/reblogs there are very welcome (as are comments here)! I'm dying to know what y'all are feeling, dangling off this cliffhanging like this.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't do the horrible art I threatened because I got distracted by the Addict MV. Anyway final chapter!! Final chapter!!!

"Do come right on in!" Despite the Radio Demon's cheery tone and inviting words, he wasn't giving Poppy a choice; he'd seized her by the loop of her backpack and dragged her into the dark house. When she extended an arm to grab her maybe-angelic switchblade, Alastor seized her arm and wrenched her upright, forcing her up on her tail to stand at his height. "Our mutual friend had a rather rough night," Alastor said, wrapping his free arm around her back and tangling his fingers in her braid to keep her from squirming away. "I'm sure he'll be _thrilled_ to see you've—"

Poppy lunged for his face, fangs extended.

Alastor seemed to melt off of her as he pulled back. She tried again with her freed arm, swinging her knife at Alastor. She tore his coat near the waist and felt the blade rip flesh.

There was a screech like the feedback of a microphone held next to a speaker at top volume. Poppy tried to block her ears with her one hand and shoulder, not thinking to extend her other arm, and narrowly avoided accidentally stabbing her own face.

Despite the electronic noise of pain, Alastor's grin stretched wider and his eyes glowed with eager hunger.

While Poppy was still reeling from the noise, Alastor punched her across the face so hard she saw stars. It felt like Alastor was wearing brass knuckles. Poppy dropped her knife. Something in her mouth cracked; she dizzily hoped it was a tooth and not her jaw. In the dim light, it looked like the shadows were shifting and swimming.

"Now, now, now." Alastor seized her jaw hard in one hand. He stepped on and slid her switchblade over to himself, jerked Poppy's face down as he bent over to pick the blade up, and shut it. "There's no need for that." He reached around Poppy to stuff the switchblade into her skirt's back pocket, and then delicately pinched open the clasp of her backpack's chest strap.

The backpack slipped off her armless shoulder and its weight slid down her arm, dropping heavily onto her tail. She hissed in pain.

Alastor ignored her discomfort. His grip tightened on her face as he bent over to scoop up her backpack with his other hand. "We both want the same thing, after all! You want to get Ernie back, and I want to give him to you."

Poppy shoved Alastor back, finally ripping herself free of his grip; but she hesitated with her hand hovering over the knife in her pocket. (Would Alastor have returned her knife if it could do anything to him? He was moving a little more gingerly now, but he wasn't exactly writhing in existence-rending pain. In fact, if anything, Poppy got the uneasy impression that he'd _liked_ being stabbed. So much for that "angel spear" tip.) "Really?"

"Sure!" Alastor said. "If you want him enough."

Of course there was a catch. That was the exact sort of slippery shit she should have expected out of someone with the Radio Demon's reputation. She was going to kick herself for the rest of her afterlife for telling Ernest back at the bar to go up to Alastor and find out what he wanted—they should have run for it the moment he'd come into the bar.

There was a part of her that thought she'd be better off saying, no, actually, she didn't think she wanted Ernest that badly if it meant dealing with Alastor to get him; but maybe there was still a chance of getting out of this with both herself and Ernest in one piece. Alastor wasn't simply mangling Poppy, after all—even though at this point, if he wanted to, he probably could. He was _talking_. Maybe he could be bargained with. "Where is he?"

Alastor's malicious smile stretched wider. He slung one strap of Poppy's backpack over his shoulder, headed for the stairs, and crooked a finger at her to follow.

Swearing at herself under her breath, Poppy slithered up after him.

One of her fangs had broken when Alastor punched her; bitter, morphine-like venom was slowly seeping out of the snapped hollow tooth and along one side of her tongue. Instead of swallowing it, she spit the extra on the stairs behind Alastor. Swallowing her own venom did almost nothing to her, but under the circumstances, she didn't want to take chances.

Even though she was pretty sure she'd recovered from the punch as much as she could, the shadows on the stairs still seemed to stir sluggishly around her. It took her until they reached the top of the stairs, where dull light poured out of an ajar door before she realized it wasn't her vision that was swimming, but the shadows themselves.

"Here we are!" Alastor pushed open the door. Poppy gasped so sharply that she almost choked on her own venomous saliva.

Ernest's head was a mass of blood. For a moment, Poppy thought his throat had been slit; but then she realized the line of blood at the top of his throat was where his frill had been sliced free of his neck, from one end of his jaw to the other, the thin supporting bones snapped straight through, with the membranes tossed back over his shoulders to dangle down his back. But even worse was his face—his snout crushed in so it was almost flat. He was gagged and bound to a wooden chair with a makeshift rope made from ripped fabric. He lifted his head to look wearily at Poppy.

She jolted across the room to him, stopped a few feet away as she realized that there was nothing she could do for him, and rounded on Alastor. Somehow, this was worse than finding Ernest in a dozen different dumpsters. That, at least, Alastor could have done distantly, coldly, standing back and letting the bloodthirsty little minions everyone said he'd had serving him during his first attack on Hell perform the dismemberment. This was so much more intimate. This was so personal. "How could you _do_ this to him?!"

Alastor's expression didn't twitch in the face of Poppy's fury. In fact, as she yelled at him, he just leaned back to half-sit on a nightstand, pick up a glass off a stapled booklet he'd been using as a coaster, and sip it. Behind his back, Poppy could see open, mostly-full bottles of rye, cognac, a couple of bitters... While Ernest was bound, broken-boned, and bleeding, Alastor had sat there and mixed himself a cocktail.

In answer to Poppy's question, Alastor said simply, "He sold himself to me."

Poppy whipped around to stare at Ernest in amazement—Ernest wouldn't meet her gaze—and then at Alastor. " _Why?!_ "

She wasn't sure which one of them she was asking; but Ernest only hunched his shoulders and drooped lower in his restraints, and Alastor said, "Because I asked him to." Alastor laughed wryly. "I suppose it wasn't much of a _sale_ , was it? More like a very generous donation." A cash register sound played, followed by a modest round of appreciative applause from an invisible audience.

"Is this _funny_ to you?!"

"That he all but offered me his soul before I even had a chance to ask for it? I mean...!" Alastor spread his hands in a wide shrug, his drink almost sloshing out of its glass. "But we should be talking about why _you're_ here, Poppy! After all, did you come up here to shout at me or to get your friend back?"

"I can _multitassk_ , you sssorry son of a bitch!" The extra venom leaking into her mouth was threatening to stir up the lisp she'd spent years unlearning. She reluctantly swallowed some of it.

Alastor actually flinched at that; the sharp corners of his smile lost some of their edge. What, had he never been called a sonuva before?

Before Alastor had a chance to get out any more chatter, Poppy demanded, "What do you want for him?"

" _You._ "

Poppy's breath caught in her throat.

"I'd like something specific," he said, "very much. Something _you_ can give to me and Ernie _can't_." Alastor's eyes were like red spotlights, the beam of their light drifting disinterestedly from Poppy's face, over her torso, and down to her waist, where they moved down slowly, tracing her serpentine curves. "Hence this little hostage exchange."

This room was better lit than the rest of the house, sunlight fighting past the factory next door to slant through the grimy, curtainless window; but even here, the stirring and shifting shadows still moved around and around. They almost made the snakes embossed in gold on the wall and carved in the wooden bedposts look like they were squirming and slithering. Poppy pulled the end of her tail in, wrapping it in a tight coil.

"You were using him to get to _me?_ "

Behind her, Poppy heard Ernest let out a low, groaning exhalation. It was the most pained sound she'd ever heard.

Alastor shrugged carelessly. "He came up to me. You didn't. I worked with what I had."

"But, that—" She stammered in disbelief. "That's—completely fucking stupid."

That brought Alastor up short. "I beg your pardon?"

"If you were going to kidnap him and beat him up, you could've done it the first date!" Poppy laughed harshly in disbelief. "Why the hell did you string him along for months?!"

Alastor stared at her, as if he was trying to figure out the answer himself. Finally, he said, "I'm dramatic."

"Dramatic and _stupid_!"

"Dramatic and stupid," Alastor granted, shrugging as he set down his drink and adjusted his monocle. "So here's the deal!" He clapped.

The light disappeared, the room falling pitch black. Only their skin and the snake designs on the wall were clearly visible now, glowing an eerie blue. The snake motifs slithered freely around the walls, spinning in a circle, making Poppy feel like _she_ was the one spinning, as if they were all standing on a merry-go-round or room-sized roulette table.

Alastor stood from the nightstand and continued as if nothing had happened: "I'd very much like you to join my, oh... call it the staff of my personal radio station, if you will." He gestured, his microphone-topped cane appearing from nowhere to assist with the motion; where he gestured, shadowlike shapes appeared, silhouettes of demons with glowing magenta and cyan eyes, leering maniacally at Poppy and Ernest. "I give you Ernest's soul—and in return, you give me _yours_." He stretched out a hand, cutting the distance between himself and Poppy in half. "Do we have a deal?"

Poppy laughed again in disbelief.

Unfazed, Alastor said, "Or would you like to watch me break a few more of Ernest's bones?" He nodded past her to the chair.

Poppy whipped around. In the darkness, she couldn't see what it was that had wrapped around Ernest's lower leg, but she could hear the wet crack as it bent the bones at a right angle. Ernest howled in pain.

" _Ernest!_ " Poppy reached for him and stopped herself again—there was nothing she could do to help him; she probably couldn't even risk trying to cut his bonds while Alastor was watching—but then she seized his hand hard, giving him a distraction. He squeezed back twice as hard.

Voice shaking, Poppy said, "This isn't—this isn't how deals for souls work." She was getting dizzy; she didn't know if it was her own venom or the illusion of the spinning room. "Everyone knows the devil's supposed to buy souls by offering things people _want_. Like, _seducing_ them. Not kidnapping and ransoming their friends!"

"And maybe the devil does!" Alastor said. "I wouldn't know; I'm not the devil. I'm less lawyer and more hunter." He shrugged. "So, my lovely prey—what's it going to be?"

His hand was stretched out again. Green light traced his fingers like small spectral serpents.

She tried to think through the increasing disorientation of the spinning room. She knew what happened to people who sold their souls to Alastor. What happened was Husk—who seemed to be more deeply inconvenienced by Alastor than anything else. Husk didn't mention Alastor's _absolutely fucked up_ recruitment methods; but she could stand being stuck in a position like Husk. Setting Alastor up to prey on strangers in bars, sometimes getting called on for stupid shit like giving him a haircut at midnight? Sure. That was just how Hell was. She could live with that, even if Alastor _did_ have a weird snake fixation. Might be okay, might come with perks, like Husk's whole rolodex worth of cocktail napkins with phone numbers. And maybe it'd put her in a position to stick a _real_ angelic knife in Alastor's side someday.

"Fine. Deal." She reached for his hand.

The moment she took it, the light returned to normal, the spinning stopped and her head cleared. She hadn't realized how much her mind had been fogged up by the dark room and twirling lights. She didn't feel any different—she didn't feel any less like the master of her own self—just somehow drained.

She extended her other arm and pulled her knife out again so she could start sawing through Ernest's fabric restraints, starting with the gag around his broken mouth. He flinched in pain as she pulled the fabric a little tighter around his jaw to get her knife under it.

"I know," Poppy muttered. "Sorry." She'd never been close to someone who'd gotten mangled like this before; she had no idea how long it took a body to repair this much damage. They'd probably have to get him to a hospital if they didn't want his bones to set in that crushed-in position—how the hell were they going to afford that? Poppy doubted Alastor covered the medical bills for the "staff of his personal radio station," much less the hostages he traded with his staff. She freed Ernest's mouth, he gasped and winced in pain, and she got to work on the makeshift rope around his chest.

Poppy heard Alastor unzip her backpack. "Now... let's _really_ get to work." His voice was deeper, somehow doubled, the edges of it traced with distortion. Ernest's eyes widened; Poppy whipped around.

Alastor had disappeared his cane somewhere so he could heft Poppy's axe experimentally, testing out its weight. Some essential human thing had gone missing, completely drained out of his eyes; they looked shiny-plasticky and artificial.

Poppy shot up, raising her knife again, this time defensively. "Whoa. What's this?"

"What do you _think?_ " Alastor swung the axe experimentally, whipping it through the air between them. Poppy flinched back. Alastor went on, "Thank you for bringing this, by the by. Pretty blunt, I admit"—he tested the edge of the blade against his gloved thumb, and a jolt went up Poppy's back when it came away with fresh blood—"but still better than the old weapons rusting around here."

"You wouldn't." Poppy wished she was sure of that. "That's not how you... I'm in Husk's position now, and you just call on him for odd jobs—"

"Oh! Ha!" Some of the missing humanity returned to Alastor's eyes. Unfortunately, it was very malicious-looking humanity. "Did Husk let you think I _own_ his soul? Oh, he _has_ been a good helper, hasn't he. Above and beyond the call of duty." Alastor shook his head. "No no no, Husk _owes_ me. He's in my _debt_. There's only so far I can go with a debtor. But _you_... I _own_ you two."

Poppy's stomach sank at the news—and then plummeted a little bit farther. "You _two_? No—no, you _freed_ Ernest, it's just me—"

From the way Alastor's studio audience spontaneously burst into peals of laughter, somehow she thought she was wrong.

Maybe she'd better free Ernest sooner rather than later. She sawed through one of his wrist restraints. Ernest grabbed the knife from her and started furiously on the other.

"See, this is the deal we made," Alastor said. "I traded ownership of his soul for your soul—we were very clear on that, weren't we? Which means you own his soul and, since I own yours, by extension, I own what you own."

Poppy felt like the breath had been punched out of her. "That..." She shook her head. "I didn't mean that. That's not what I agreed to."

"I know it's not what you meant, but it _is_ what you agreed to," Alastor said. "You shook on it."

"I—I—I didn't realize that was what you meant, I wasn't thinking straight—"

"I know," Alastor said. "I made sure you weren't."

The dark room, the spinning lights, the dizziness. "Did... What the fuck was that, hypnosis? Mind control?"

"Less control and more of a heavy nudge." Alastor nodded toward Ernest. "He got something closer to full control."

"That's _not fair!_ " Poppy lunged furiously toward him.

He held up a hand like a stop sign, and she immediately felt compelled to freeze. Alastor didn't even respond to her complaints; he just rolled his eyes and picked up his glass to drain the rest of it while his studio audience laughed at her.

"You can't—That's not how this is supposed to work! Selling your soul is supposed to be some sort of monkey's paw shit—get what you want but not how you want it. You can't make someone sell their soul with _mind control!_ "

"But I can!" Alastor announced, gesturing enthusiastically with the axe. He tossed the glass into the air; Poppy thought it was suspended in midair until she realized a shadow had caught it. It began picking up bottles to mix another cocktail. Ignoring it, Alastor went on, "And I do! All the time!"

"Then it _doesn't count_ ," Poppy decided. "It's—that's _got_ to be... existentially _illegal_ somehow."

"Oh, my friend, you don't understand how this works." Alastor laughed contemptuously. "Do you think there's a kindly court system where you can appeal the sale of a soul? Lawyers who make sure it's all legally binding and aboveboard? This is _Hell_. Selling a soul isn't a legal contract; it's a _chemical reaction_. You shake my hand—" Alastor snapped his fingers, "—and I get your soul. A chemical reaction doesn't care about what's _fair_."

"I always thought you deal-making types were supposed to be smart," Poppy snarled. "Some sort of Martinellian manipulative masterminds. But you're just another one of the billion stupid fuckin' bullies down here, aren't you?"

Alastor gave her a dark look, lips pressed tight together. Even his shadow stopped mixing to stare. Then, patiently, he said, "It's _Machiavellian_. Martinelli makes apple juice."

Poppy hocked a venom-laced loogie in Alastor's eye.

The room flashed furious red; for a moment, Poppy was sure she saw something other than a smile flash across Alastor's face, something ugly and hateful. Then everything was back to normal and he was delicately wiping Poppy's spit off of his face with the corner of the bed's faded, snakeskin-patterned silk sheet. Conversationally, he said, "You'd be amazed by all the things you can do with someone once you own their soul. For instance!" Alastor lifted a hand.

Poppy and Ernest lifted with it. With a gesture, Alastor flung them against a wall, knocking the breath out of Poppy. Despite how she twisted around in the air, her tail writhing and barely brushing the ground, she couldn't get down. She was trapped, as if dozens of invisible hands held her against the wall.

"It's such a pity," Alastor lamented, "that Hell's denizens get such a poor education on what it means to sell your soul! Pity for _them_ , anyway. It works out quite well for _me_."

Alastor tucked the axe under his arm, seized Poppy and Ernest's hands, and inspected them both. "Now, let me see. I didn't realize you _have_ hands, Poppy dear, silly me—perhaps I'd rather use yours..." He looked them over, and then glanced at Ernest and murmured, "No, I think I really _do_ prefer your hands. Proper workman's hands." He stepped back, raised the axe, held it sideways near Poppy's waist height, glanced between Ernest and Poppy, and continued his lecture on souls as if he'd never paused it: "See, if you sell your soul while you're alive, you've bargained away an almost imperceptible passenger aboard your body. And whatever bought you can't do much to your soul as long as it's in a body they've got no legal ownership over. You can go the rest of your life without noticing your soul's under new ownership. At least until you die."

After a moment of contemplation, Alastor made a subtle gesture, and whatever force held Ernest dragged him up so his waist was also even with the axe. He grunted in pain but made no other sound. Poppy wondered whether Alastor had broken Ernest's face too much for him to talk.

"If you sell your soul after you're dead, though... well! At that point, all you _are_ is a soul! You've given somebody metaphysical control over your _entire_ state of existence!"

As Alastor turned sideways, aiming his axe at Ernest, he went on, just as conversationally, "I really don't need to go _this_ low, but it does no harm—and it's so much easier to get through the spine either above or below the ribs, you really don't want to go through the rib cages, now _there's_ a quick way to make a big mess..."

Ernest squeezed his eyes shut and tensed up in anticipation.

Desperate to delay the inevitable, Poppy demanded, "Why do you need to own Ernest, though?! You said _I'm_ the one you want!"

"That was a lie. I want both of you." He dragged the tip of his claw along the bottom of Poppy's chin. "Surprised? You were the one who said I shouldn't have put so much time into Ernie if I didn't want him! Which of us is stupid, now?" For how light his touch was, it seared her skin.

"You see," Alastor went on, "I like this." He reached over to play with the tattered, dangling remains of Ernest's frill. "And I like this." He ran a hand over Poppy's hip, his knuckles grazing over the scales as his touch trailed lower, running down along the curve of her long tail. The wooden shaft of the axe's handle, still in Alastor's hand, occasionally brushed over Poppy's skin. Alastor shut his eyes, and for a moment, his face was still, almost blank, vague and detached, as if he was savoring the feeling.

When the Radio Demon's face wasn't animated with chatter and his eyes weren't searching and piercing, he looked stupid and old, and his smile looked vapid and dirty.

Poppy tried unsuccessfully to squirm away from his touch. "Don't you fucking touch—"

Alastor's eyes snapped open like spotlights flashing on. "No more speaking."

And suddenly she couldn't speak. Her tongue still moved, and air still flowed in and out of her mouth, but she couldn't raise her breath into a voice, couldn't shape her tongue around words.

"There's only one announcer on this station, and I don't like sharing the mic." Alastor switched his axe from one hand to the other. "Now, I like that and that," he said, nodding toward Ernest's frill and Poppy's tail, "But I don't like _this_ "—he tangled a hand in Poppy's ponytail and jerked her neck over so hard she saw stars—"or _this_." He butted the head of the axe so hard into the knee of Ernest's uninjured leg that Poppy heard the kneecap crunch. Over Ernest's wheezes of pain, Alastor said, gesturing between Ernest and Poppy's waists, "So I'm just going to perform a little switcheroo."

Poppy's waist tensed as she tried and failed to double up on herself.

"Oh, hold on." Alastor set down the axe to lean it against his leg and wrapped his hands around Ernest's waist. Ernest shuddered at the touch. Alastor shoved up the bottom of Ernest's bloody shirt and suit jacket so that they were bunched up around his chest.

Then he lifted the axe again and swung.

Poppy squeezed her eyes shut.

Ernest wailed in pain.

The wail abruptly cut off. Poppy kept her eyes shut.

"You see"—another axe thwack interrupted Alastor's chatter—"you see, there's just so much you can do with a dead sinner once you own his whole soul! Why, the only things that are off-limits are whatever you swore as a part of the bargain to obtain the souls in the first place!" Another wet, meaty thwack. "Trading two torsos? Sure! Why not! It's perfectly legal—and perfectly _easy_ , if you've got half a century of experience with souls under your belt—HA, I apologize, that's an inconsiderate turn of phrase for me to use under the circumstances, isn't it? So sorry, Ernie." Another thwack.

Half a century—Poppy tried to remember if the Radio Demon had been dead fifty years. She couldn't do the math; the numbers tumbled around through her terror like she was stuck in a barrel rolling downhill. She didn't think it had been fifty years. How long had he been doing this? No wonder he'd been so powerful when he'd died. 

Another thwack, and a heavy weight thudded to the floor.

Then the axe tore like a starving animal into Poppy's stomach.

###

Poppy didn't know if she'd passed out or if she'd simply briefly stopped being able to think; Alastor's chatter had pattered steadily over her head like a lawn sprinkler misaimed at a sidewalk, unintelligible and meaningless. She didn't snap out of the haze of pain and background radio droning until Alastor played a triumphant trumpet noise that jolted her out of her trance. "There!"

She cracked open her eyes. At her waist, all she could feel was screaming, throbbing, blazing pain; and below that, nothing. On the floor beside her, the first thing she managed to focus on was the pocket of a pair of pants; then the shape of a pant leg; then the bloody stump of Ernest's waist.

"Lovely," Alastor said. "Absolutely lovely."

From the floor, Poppy could only look up at Alastor from an angle partway behind him. Held suspended in the air before him on black barbed wire was Ernest, writhing in pain. Poppy's own lower half was stitched onto Ernest's waist with red and black threads, large thick ones to hold the half bodies in the right place and thin ones along the whole line of bifurcation to knit the skin together. Poppy didn't want to think about how Alastor must have reconnected the organs. She wondered if he'd actually bothered.

She couldn't see Ernest's face. The light outside was fading, lighting Ernest from behind. From here, he looked like a gray silhouette. Something about the shape of him was familiar.

As Ernest contorted in pain, Poppy's own tail writhed and spasmed with his movements.

"You know," Alastor said, "surgery is so _easy_ when you don't have to worry about the patients dying—and don't care about how much pain they're in. Ha!" Several of Alastor's shadowy buddies had grown a bit more corporeal, stepping away from the wall, wielding threads and needles; perhaps they'd been Alastor's sewing assistants. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed them, and they sank back towards the wall and half-corporeality. "I suppose everything's easy when you don't care about the consequences."

He cleaned off the axe with a scrap of torn curtain, picked up Poppy's backpack, dropped it on the bed, and dropped down to sit beside it. "Yes, indeed. Not caring makes things so much easier..." He reached down beside the bed to pick up a bottle of booze and chug it down. He swayed more than Poppy expected. Where was the cocktail his shadow had made for him earlier—had he drunk it? How much more had he drunk during the surgery? "But! The option to _not care_ comes along so rarely, doesn't it? No—ha—it turns out that sometimes we don't _get_ that choice! Sometimes we just, get—get caring thrust upon us!" Alastor shook his head. "It's such a dreadful thing."

His glowing eyes turned on Poppy. "Isn't it?"

What in Hell was he going on about. Poppy could barely move; but she managed to curl one hand into flipping him the bird.

Alastor glanced toward Ernest as though he hadn't noticed. Maybe he hadn't. It seemed that as far as he was concerned, they were just mannequins for him to monologue to.

Alastor arched his brows. "After all... look where caring about someone else got _you_ two." He waved his bottle toward Ernest. "It just doesn't pay to go home with someone you met at the bar, does it?" And glanced back at Poppy. "Or to put yourself on the line for a friend."

Last night, Poppy had watched Ernest nervously dressing in a suit he didn't even like and breezily talking about finally getting some action when every other word he'd said about Alastor for the last few weeks betrayed that Ernest was internally warring over whether or not he'd fallen in love with the poor, pathetic, broken man.

Last night, Poppy had stayed up all night, wondering over and over whether she should have tried harder to drag her only dependable friend away from an obviously selfish, controlling douche or just let him make his mistakes, making mental lists of every single person she could call on for assistance if the next morning she needed to scrape chunks of Ernest off a sidewalk.

The hell did Alastor know about caring?

With a herculean effort, Poppy flipped Alastor off with both hands.

He didn't notice.

He chugged the rest of his bottle and flung it aside to smash on a wall. "All right! That's the simple part done." He tried to get to his feet, needed to make a second attempt due to how far he'd sunken into the old mattress, and summoned his cane again to help him getup. "See, stitching a couple of _spare parts_ together is the easy way to modify a soul. The hard way—oh, much, _much_ harder—is... Did you ever watch serials at the picture show? Mysteries, adventures, fantastic stories and the like. Each film only ran twenty or thirty minutes, come back to the theater each week to see the next chapter... I think they've stopped making them, more's the pity."

Poppy was pretty sure that what Alastor was describing was a TV show. TV shows did that. She decided that even if she _had_ been able to speak, she wouldn't have told him this; he didn't deserve to learn that the art form had survived.

"Anyway," Alastor said, "have you ever seen a disintegrator ray? A made-up gun that reduces a person to dust? Well! It's going to be like that." Clinging tightly to his cane for balance, Alastor bent over to scoop a top hat off the floor. He brushed it off. "Actually, disintegration is _also_ easy."

Alastor stretched up to plop the top hat on Ernest's head and give it an affectionate pat.

With a nauseous lurch, Poppy realized who Ernest's new silhouette reminded her of.

"What's _hard_ is disintegrating every bit of a person... _except_ their shadow." Alastor tucked his cane into the crook of an arm so he could crack his knuckles. "But lucky for you two—I've got quite a bit of practice at _this_ , too."

Ignoring how moving made her neck and back scream in pain, Poppy twisted her head around in horrified realization, looking at Alastor's shadows twisting and roiling around the walls.

The shadows looked down at her sympathetically.

"Just hold still, and in a moment I'll be all finished."

###

Alastor had always enjoyed dancing.

The roller rink made for a passable dance floor. At night, the meager moonlight coming in through the narrow, uniform windows didn't illuminate the paintings on the wall, colorful and cartoony but filthily lewd for customers who'd come to the roller rink desperate to reclaim the happiness of their innocent mortal childhoods in a realm where nearly no children and certainly no innocents would ever be seen. The floor was scuffed and unmaintained, but it was wood, and around the scuffs it shone dully in the moonlight.

Alastor had a new dance partner. A dance partner so perfect that Alastor himself had bowed out of the dance, ducking to the side of the rink so he could send his own shadow in instead. He stood with eyes shut and hands laced atop his cane, seeing and feeling through his shadow's body instead of his own.

The shadow was still a little wobbly, not very graceful—understandable, considering that the head on top was still learning how to move on a tail instead of legs!—but beneath its gracelessness, it clearly knew all the dance steps. As it should. Alastor had made the right decision, spending so many weeks training the head to dance before claiming ownership. Imagine if the shadow had to learn how to dance _and_ move on a tail at the same time.

But more important than the dancing, the shadow moved just right.

It swayed sinuously, its entire length one long, rolling curve. It held Alastor's ghostly hand and waist with hands rough and calloused from a life and afterlife of working with tools and heavy machinery. Its jacket and top hat, shadowy silhouette black, completed the figure as much as the hood that twirled out behind it when they spun.

By then, Alastor had taken his new partner out dancing enough to fully break it in. It didn't flinch or shiver when he pulled it closer or wrapped his arms around its phantasmal back. Just like his most well-tamed shadows, perfectly obedient and cooperative.

And when Alastor shut his shade's eyes and rested his head in the crook of its neck, when he embraced it gently enough not to scatter the fragile shade but firmly enough to make it seem real, when he felt its hood brushing his hair and ears, when he pressed his thighs against its serpentine underbelly, it felt almost... almost...

Almost...

But not quite.

Standing behind Alastor on the side of the roller rink, huddled together, waiting for their master's next command, was his obedient studio audience: all his other shadows.

Among them was what, at first glance, looked like a person sitting on the ground with knees pulled to their chest and arms wrapped around them. On closer inspection, the shape was actually two shadows; a pair of legs doubled up at the knees, and a torso hugging the legs tight as if to ensure they couldn't be stolen. The hands, nearly invisible against the legs, trembled with the force of their grip.

Alastor clenched his real claws on his cane as his shadow's fingers first curled into the fabric of the jacket and then clenched into fists when they tore through the delicate shadow. Not quite the same. Never quite the same.

Nothing was the same.

Maybe if he was drunker, the differences would feel smaller.

Together, the shadows swayed across the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!!!
> 
> \- For anyone who _doesn't_ obsessively read every single other radiosnake fic I've ever written and who went "wait was this Sir Pentious's house??": I headcanon that he had an array of secret safe houses scattered around that he could retreat to in case of, say, his airships blowing up; but after things went sour between him and Alastor, he abandoned all the safe houses that Alastor knew the location of.
> 
> \- The cocktail Alastor's making for himself is a [sazerac](https://www.liquor.com/recipes/sazerac/), which has recently been marketed as the "official cocktail" of New Orleans; I stuck it in because I mentioned in a discord that Alastor's drinking a ton in this fic and someone was like "sazerac?" and I was like, that's amusing _and_ coincidentally includes a couple of spirits Alastor had elsewhere in the fic, so I'll take it.
> 
> \- Martinelli's apple juice is pretty good.
> 
> Post for this chapter available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/623933342653530112/come-a-little-bit-closer-chapter-77-final). Comments/reblogs there are highly (as are comments here)! Especially for the last chapter!! Tell me what y'all thought! :)


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